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SPECULUM
A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
DANTE AND THE MOSAICS OF HIS BEL SAN GIOVANNI E. H. Wiix1ixs
PREGOTHIC ARCHITECTURE: A MIRROR OF THE SOCIAL-
RELIGIOUS RENAISSANCE OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY
ON THE SYMBOLS OF THE ABBREVIATIONS FOR -TUR . .
NOTES
A RESTORATION STUDY OF THE SOUTH-WEST TOWER AT
SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE BUSILIS; ITALIAN BUSILLIS G. T. Norraup
A TWELFTH-CENTURY EXULTET ROLL AT TROJA W. M. Warresit1, Jr.
F. L. Ganshof, Etude sur les ministeriales en Flandre et en Lotharingie (J. W. Thomp-
son); C. W. Previté-Orton and Z. N. Brooke, ed., The Cambridge Medieval History,
Vol. V (L. Thorndike); L. Thorndike, Short History of Civilization (J. W. Thomp-
son); T. A. Jenkins, ed., La Chanson de Roland (J. D. M. Ford); L. Schiaparelli,
Avviamento allo Studio delle Abbreviature Latine nel Mediaevo (E. K. Rand).
ANNOUNCEMENTS OF BOOKS RECEIVED. ...............
NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS
VoLuME II JANUARY, 1927
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY
THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
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L. C. MacKinney
E.K.Ranp 52
KING OSWY AND CEDMON’S HYMN ............A.S.Cook 67
oe A NOTE UPON THE SUNDAY EPISTLE AND THE LETTER OF ey
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SPECULUM
A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES
DANTE AND THE MOSAICS OF HIS
BEL SAN GIOVANNI
By ERNEST HATCH WILKINS
I
N May of the year 1225, forty years before the birth of Dante,
a Franciscan friar by the name of Jacobus began the mosaic of
the tribuna of the Florentine Baptistery (Plate I, centre). The
work was probably completed in 1228 or soon thereafter.’
Within the same century the Baptistery was further decorated
by the mosaics of the octagonal cupola (Plate II). Those on the
three faces to the west, above the tribuna, represent the Last Judg-
ment; those on the other five faces narrate, in four bands, each con-
taining fifteen scenes, the story of Genesis up to the Deluge, the
life of Joseph, the life of Christ, and the life of John the Baptist.
Above all these the topmost band represents the nine orders of the
angels.”
There are two opinions with regard to the dates of these mosaics.
Van Marle regards the Last Judgment and the angels as earlier than
the narrative scenes; Venturi regards them as contemporary. Van
1 R. Davidsohn, ‘‘Das ilteste Werk der Franciscaner-Kunst,” in Repertorium fiir Kunst-
wissenschaft, XXII (1899), 315; A. Venturi, Storia dell’ arte italiana, III (Milan, 1904), 872;
K. Frey, in his edition of Vasari’s Lives, Part I, Vol. I (Munich, 1911), 328; R. van Marle,
The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, I (The Hague, 1923), 262.
2 A. Aubert, Die malerische Dekoration der San Francesco Kirche in Assisi (Leipzig, 1907),
p. 68; Venturi, V (1907), pp. 217-239; van Marle, pp. 262-270. Several mosaicists took
part in the work, among them, presumably, the two, Andrea Tafi and Apollonio, to whom
Vasari, in his life of Tafi, ascribes it.
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Marle thinks that the Last Judgment and the angels may have been
begun at the same time as the mosaic of the tribuna; and that the
narrative scenes were begun in 1271 or soon thereafter and not
finished until after 1300. Venturi assigns them all to the period 1271-
1300.
The general appearance of the mosaics representing the Last
Judgment and the angels is certainly more archaic than that of the
narrative scenes. Venturi is, I think, misled by his belief that the
lack of narrative scenes for the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and
Esau indicates that the plan of including the Last Judgment in the
decorative scheme was an afterthought which prevented the carry-
ing out of the previous plan. This belief, however, does not appear
to be valid. The Last Judgment is the dominating feature of the
decoration and holds the position of honor over the high altar; the
narrative scenes are subsidiary to it. Surely it is probable that the
Last Judgment was from the beginning the dominating element of
the decorative plan. Each of the four narrative bands is complete
in itself, and each begins to the right of the Last Judgment.
In any case, we may be confident that the mosaics of the tribuna
and the upper mosaics representing the Last Judgment and the
angels were known to Dante.
It is inherently probable that Dante, as boy and young man,
was very greatly interested in all the mosaics of the Baptistery
visible to him. There is no need of stressing his love for his bel san
Giovanni; there is no need of stressing his sensitiveness to art. And
the mosaics of the Baptistery, instead of being, as they are now,
very minor items in the extraordinary artistic wealth of Florence,
were in Dante’s boyhood and youth the most notable works of
modern art in Florence. There was, indeed, nothing to rival them,
so far as I can ascertain, except the small mosaic of the facade of
San Miniato, and at the very end of the century the mosaic of the
apse of San Miniato and possibly the mosaic of the coronation of
the Virgin, now in the cathedral. We have no record of any Floren-
tine fresco sequence prior to 1200; and even the altarpieces were
few.’
1 Venturi, V, 241-242; van Marle, I, 261-262, 271-275.
2 O. Siren, Toskanische Maler im XIII. Jahrhundert, Berlin, 1922.
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Dante and the Mosaics of his Bel San Giovanni 3
It is further to be borne in mind that this representation of the
Last Judgment was presumably better known to Dante than any
other representation of the same theme, and that it is indeed the
only representation of the Last Judgment which we know him to
have seen; ' also that there must have been a natural psychological
tendency for him to form or modify his youthful concept of Heaven
by what he saw when he looked upward in his church.
It would seem to be worth while, therefore, to consider whether
there be a relation between the mosaics of the Baptistery and any
of the visual imaginings of the Commedia.
Il
Let us examine first the mosaic of the tribuna (Plate 111). To
the right Mary sits enthroned; opposite her, to the left, John the
Baptist sits enthroned; between them is a round design, floreate in
decoration, containing curiously shaped compartments occupied by
individual figures. This round design, with its compartments, sug-
gests a flower with its petals — even more strongly when seen from
an angle (see Plate I) than when seen from directly below.
The visible semblance of Dante’s Empyrean consists of a great
1 The most notable other monumental representations of the Last Judgment produced in
Italy before 1300 are: the fresco in Sant’ Angelo in Formis, near Capua, on which see P. Jessen,
Die Darstellung des Weltgerichts bis auf Michelangelo (Berlin, 1883), pp. 12-14, G. Voss, Das
jiingste Gericht in der bildenden Kunst des frithen Mittelalters (= Beitrdge zur Kunstgeschichte,
VIII, Leipzig, 1884), pp. 45-47, and van Marle, I, 189-140 and VI (1925), 62; the mosaic in
the cathedral of Torcello, on which see Jessen, pp. 8-11, Voss, pp. 48-52, C. A. Levi, Dante a
Torcello e il musaico del giudizio universale (Treviso, 1906; known to me only through the
unsigned notice in the Bullettino della Societa Dantesca Italiana, XX, 1913, 238) and van
Marle, I, 286-239; and the fresco by Cavallini in Sta. Cecilia in Rome, on which see van
Marle, I, 515-519. For other less notable representations see the references in van Marle,
VI, 62; also van Marle, I, 448. There is no specific reason to think that Dante saw any of
these representations. No one of them, so far as I can ascertain, possesses similarities to the
Commedia so extensive or so striking as those pointed out in the present article. On the
possibility of Dante’s knowledge of Giotto’s fresco of the Last Judgment at Padua, see below,
p.9. A fresco, now destroyed, containing a Satan con pit bocche existed in Boccaccio’s time
on the fagade of the church of San Gallo in Florence: see Decameron, viii, 9, and Francesco
Sansovino’s comment thereon in his Dichiaratione di tutti i vocaboli... che nel . . . Decamerone
st trovano (Venice, 1546), reported in D. M. Manni, [storia del Decamerone di Giovanni Boccaccio
(Florence, 1742), pp. 515-516. In view of the general dearth of frescoes in Florence before
1300 and their multiplication soon thereafter, the chances are that the fresco was painted
after Dante’s exile.
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Rose containing a petal-seat for each of the redeemed. At one point
of the upper rim is the throne of Mary, and directly opposite is that
of John the Baptist (Par. xxxii, 28-31):
E come quinci il glorioso scanno
de la donna del cielo e li altri scanni
di sotto lui cotanta cerna fanno,
cosi di contra quel del gran Giovanni."
The figures in the round design of the mosaic fall historically
into an earlier and a later group. The four to the left are patri-
archs, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, Moses; the four to the right are pro-
phets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. Just so the Rose is di-
vided upon an historical basis into two halves, the one for those
who believed in Christ venturo, the other for those who believed in
Christ venuto (Par. xxxii, 19-27).
It does not seem to me that under the circumstances these like-
nesses can be dismissed as coincidental. Neither would I claim that
this mosaic was specifically the source of the concept of the Rose.
But I believe we may fairly conclude that it is probable that memory
of this mosaic, impressed upon the mind of Dante in his most im-
pressionable years, remained therein, more or less conscious; and
that when Dante came to the devising of his Rose this memory at
least confirmed, and perhaps to some extent determined, his great
plan.’?
It may be added that the caryatids of the same mosaic very pos-
sibly shared in the building of the memory which led in general to
the concept of the punishment of the proud in Purgatory and in
particular to the simile (Purg. x, 130-135):
Come per sostentar solaio o tetto,
per mensola tal volta una figura
si vede giugner le ginocchia al petto,
1 I quote from Le opere di Dante, testo critico della Societa Dantesca Italiana, Florence,
1921.
2 For previous suggestions as to art sources for Dante’s concept of the Rose, see P. Savj-
Lopez, Il canto XXX del Paradiso (Lectura Dantis, Florence, 1906), pp. 15-19 (Savj-Lopez
does not regard as significant such suggestions as had thitherto been made); A. Gottardi, “‘La
citta di Dio e Ja citté di Satana in una raffigurazione simbolica del secolo XII,” in Giornale
dantesco, XXIII (1915), 208-219; V. Zabughin, “Dante e la chiesa greca,” in Roma el’ Oriente,
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Dante and the Mosaics of his Bel San Giovanni
la qual fa del non ver vera rancura
nascere in chi la vede; cosi fatti
vid’ io color, quando puosi ben cura.'
Let us turn now to the upper mosaics representing the Last
Judgment and the angels. Let us first review from left to right the
three faces of the cupola upon which the Last Judgment is repre-
sented, and note elements of the mosaics which correspond to ele-
ments in the Commedia.
In the left face (Plate IV) the correspondences are not striking.
The central band of the mosaic, in this and the right face as well,
pictures certain of the blessed as seated in a definite order. The
lower band shows a gate guarded by an angel, who is welcoming
a newly arrived soul. Just to the right an angel leading a group of
the blessed toward the gate bears a banner inscribed VENITE BENE-
DITTI PATRIS MEI POSSIDETE PREPARATUM — the summons of Dante’s
angel to spirits passing from Purgatory to the Earthly Paradise
(Purg. xxvii, 58).
In the central face (Plate V), at the bottom, are six tombs, the
covers raised at varying angles, with two or more figures in each
tomb rising to varying heights. These tombs are the first thing the
eye sees as one looks upward above the tribuna (see Plate I, top),
and the individual variation with which they and their occupants
are rendered makes them striking. They remind one of the tombs of
the heretics with their raised covers (Inf. x, 8-9), and in particular
of the tomb in which Cavalcanti kneels while Farinata stands up-
right (x, 52-54):
Allor surse a la vista scoperchiata
un’ ombra lungo questa infino al mento:
credo che s’ era in ginocchie levata.
Above the two right-hand tombs stands a gigantic demon whose
1915-1916 (known to me only through the notice by A. Marigo in Bullettino della Societa
Dantesca Italiana, XXVI, 1919, 85-86); F. Ermini, “La candida rosa del paradiso dantesco,””
in Giornale dantesco, XXV (1922), 306-308.
1 On the plastic precedents for the concept of the caryatids, see N. Campanini, Il canto
X del Purgatorio (Lectura Dantis, Florence, 1901), pp. 31-33.
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wings, unlike those of his neighbor to the right, are bat-wings — as
are those of Dante’s Satan (Inf. xxxiv, 49-50):
Non avean penne, ma di vispistrello
era lor modo.
Above the head of this demon is a tailed monster with a large
head and a pair of flippers, apparently swimming in the air — re-
minding one slightly of Dante’s Geryon.
In the lowest band of the right face (Plate VI), at the top near
the left, is a demon carrying a sinner over his shoulder, as in Inf.
xxi, 34-36:
L’ omero suo, ch’ era aguto e superbo,
carcava un peccator con ambo I’ anche,
e quei tenea de’ pié ghermito il nerbo.
In the mosaic, however, it is the arms that the demon is gripping.
A similar but much less striking group, facing the other way, ap-
pears in the right half of the scene, a little to the right of the head
of Satan.
Judas appears, hanging, with his name inscribed beside him, in
the lower right corner of the mosaic.
The grotesque figure of Satan (Plate VII) has in effect three
mouths — since short open-mouthed serpents project right and left
from his ears. In each of the three mouths is a sinner. The sinner
in the central mouth has his head within, and his body and legs
hanging out. Those in the side mouths hang forward, head down.
The situation is the same as in Inf. xxxiv, 61-67:
“Quell’ anima Ia su c’ ha maggior pena,”
disse ’] maestro, “é Giuda Scariotto,
che ’] capo ha dentro e fuor le gambe mena.
De li altri due c’ hanno il capo di sotto,
quel che pende dal nero ceffo é Bruto;
vedi come si storce e non fa motto;
e I’ altro é Cassio che par si membruto.”
In the central part of the scene there are several serpents of
various sorts. Two sinners — the two standing to the left and right
of Satan, with their heads in the mouths of the large-headed serpents
on which Satan is seated — are attacked each by two serpents.
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Dante and the Mosaics of his Bel San Giovanni 7
These four serpents have each four very short legs, and in each case
one of the two serpents stands upright and bites a sinner in the back.
Two, at least, of the serpents in Dante’s seventh bolgia have legs,
specified in one case as short (Inf. xxv, 50, 113); and one, at least,
stands upright and bites (xxv, 51 ff.). The same sinners in the
mosaic are bitten, by other serpents, in the neck — as is Vanni
Fucci (xxiv, 97-99):
Ed ecco a un ch’ era da nostra proda,
s’ avvento un serpente che trafisse
la dove ’1 collo a le spalle s’ annoda.
The serpents on which Satan is seated hold in their open mouths,
as has been said, the heads of these same sinners, and the serpent
to the right presses a great tooth against the cheek of his victim—
just as a serpent, attacking Agnello, puts teeth into his cheeks
(xxv, 54):
poi addenté el’ una e!’ altra guancia.
In the upper right-hand quarter of the scene is a sinner held
feet upward with his head out of sight — reminding one slightly
of Dante’s simonists.
The mosaic figures representing the nine orders of the angels
dominate the whole Baptistery from above. Their order, beginning
at the east and reading back and forth from north to south, is
Angels, Archangels, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Dominations,
Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim. The first seven are designated by
their names in large letters. The last two are not named. The order
in which they appear is that followed by Dante in the Commedia, not
that of the Convivio.
In the case of the mosaics of the cupola, as well as in the case of
that of the iribuna, it seems to me impossible under the circum-
stances to dismiss all the likenesses as coincidental. Nor is it pos-
sible on the other hand to prove absolutely that any of the motifs
of the mosaics specifically suggested any of Dante’s concepts. The
possibility of the existence of other plastic or pictorial suggestions
now lost must be held in mind; also the possibility of invention
based upon purely literary sources or upon thought alone. Yet an
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influence of these mosaics, even if not exclusive, may have been
significant in the formation of a concept resulting from a combina-
tion of various suggestions. And it remains inherently and strongly
probable that these mosaics made a deep impression upon the mind
of the young Dante.
All things considered, it seems to me probable almost to the point
of certainty that the striking figure of Satan in the mosaic — three-
mouthed, a sinner in each mouth, legs pendent from the central
mouth, heads pendent from the other two mouths — is the primary
source of Dante’s concept of his Satan;' that the biting serpents and
the bitten sinners shared in the formation of the concept of the
punishment of some of the thieves;? and that the group, to the
left of Satan, of the demon carrying a sinner slung over his shoulder
is the primary source of Dante’s group of the demon carrying the
grafter.®
Next in degree of probability I should place the supposition that
the bat-wings of Dante’s Satan were suggested by the bat-wings of
the gigantic demon in the central face of the mosaic; and the sup-
position that the tombs of the mosaic shared in the formation of the
concept of the tombs of the heretics.‘ If this latter supposition is
valid, it becomes further probable, though I think somewhat less
so, that the tombs of the mosaic were also in Dante’s mind, con-
sciously or unconsciously, when he wrote (Inf. vi, 94-99) :
Pid non si desta
di qua dal suon de |’ angelica tromba,
quando verra la nimica podesta:
ciascun rivedera la trista tomba,
ripigliera sua carne e sua figura,
udira quel che in etterno rimbomba
1 For previous suggestions as to art sources for Dante’s concept of Satan, see A. Graf,
Miti, leggende e superstizioni del medio evo, II (Turin, 1893), 92-94, 127-128; F. X. Kraus,
Dante (Berlin, 1897), pp. 439-440; R. T. Holbrook, Dante and the Animal Kingdom (New
: York, 1902), pp. 72-76; and Gottardi, loc. cit.
4 2 For a previous suggestionas toan art source for this concept, see La Divina Commedia...
illustrata nei luoghi e nelle persone, ed. by C. Ricci (Milan, 1898), pp. xxix and xxxvi.
3 So far as I can ascertain, no suggestion of an art source for this concept has previously
been made.
4 This suggestion is entirely consistent with the fact that Dante’s concept of the tombs
of the heretics was influenced by knowledge, gained through visit or report, of the tombs at
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Dante and the Mosaics of his Bel San Giovanni
and (Purg. xxx, 13-15):
Quali i beati al novissimo bando
surgeran presti ognun di sua caverna,
la revestita carne alleluiando.
With regard to the other elements noted in the mosaic of the
Last Judgment — the orderly seating of the blessed, the gate, the
angel with the words VENITE BENEDITTI PATRIS MEI, the Geryon-
like figure,! the presence of Judas, the sinner held feet up with head
out of sight, 1 should claim possibility rather than probability of
influence.
As to the angels, it seems to me inherently probable that their
dominance in the mosaic increased Dante’s interest in the angelic
host in general, and in the question of the relative order of the several
orders of angels in particular.
Dante’s fellow townsman and contemporary, Giotto, was certainly
deeply impressed by the mosaic representing hell; for, as Mr. E. F.
Rothschild and I are showing in a presently forthcoming study, he
repeated several of its motifs, with minor changes, in his fresco of
the Last Judgment in the Arena Chapel at Padua, painted probably
about 1305. Notable in particular are his repetitions of the Satan,
of the demon with a sinner slung over his shoulder, and of the sinner
bitten in the back by an upright reptile, and his extension of the
motif of the sinner held feet up with head out of sight. He does not
repeat specific motifs from the other faces of the mosaic. Dante
may or may not have seen Giotto’s fresco.’ In the respects in which
Arles (see C. Cipolla, “Sulla descrizione dantesca delle tombe di Arles,” in Giornale storico
della letteratura italiana, XXIII, 1894, 407-415) and Pola. My suggestion is to the effect
that Dante gained from the mosaic a general impression of tombs as part of an image of the
otherworld and the specific impression of spirits rising therein to different heights, and that
knowledge of the tombs of Arles and Pola later gave breadth and definition to his concept.
1 For previous suggestions as to art sources for Dante’s concept of Geryon, see A. De Vit,
“Tl Gerione dantesco,” in L’ Alighieri, 1V (1893), 202-203; A. Venturi, “‘ Dante e Giotto,” in
Nuova Antologia, Ser. iv, LXXXV (1900), 667; Holbrook, pp. 62-66; Gottardi, 211-213;
and Zabughin.
2 The only specific basis for the supposition that Dante saw Giotto’s fresco is the anecdote
narrated by Benvenuto da Imola in his commentary on Purgatorio xi: “ Accidit autem semel
quod dum Giottus pingeret Paduae, adhuc satis iuvenis, unam cappellam in loco ubi fuit olim
theatrum, sive harena, Dantes pervenit ad locum: quem Giottus honorifice receptum duxit
ad domum suam, ubi Dantes videns plures infantulos eius summe deformes . . .” and then
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10 Dante and the Mosaics of his Bel San Giovanni
the fresco differs from the mosaic, Dante’s concept is, except in one
instance, closer to the mosaic than to the fresco. The serpents pro-
jecting left and right from the head of Giotto’s Satan project so far
that the effect of a three-mouthed Satan is lost; and Giotto’s upright
biting reptile is much less serpent-like than that of the mosaic.
Giotto’s increased number of figures with feet up and head out of
sight reminds one, however, of the simonists more clearly than does
the single figure of the mosaic.
Even if we knew that Dante saw Giotto’s fresco, there would be
no indication that he derived independent suggestion from it, except
possibly in the case of the simonists. It is, of course, possible that
sight of the motifs of the mosaic as repeated by Giotto reénforced
them in Dante’s memory.’
follows the jest as to the painter’s fashioning better figures in art than in life, a jest found,
as Benvenuto himself notes, in Macrobius (Benvenuto Rambaldi, Comentum super Dantis
Aldigherij Comoediam, ed. by W. W. Vernon, ITI, Florence, 1887, 318). The statement of
Dante’s visiting Giotto appears to have been introduced as a setting for the jest. It is just
such a statement as might readily have been invented, and is not confirmed by other sources.
It cannot, therefore, be relied on as authentic. See A. Moschetti, La cappella degli Scrovegni
e gli affreschi di Giotto in essa dipinti (Florence, 1904), pp. 16-17; N. Zingarelli, Dante (Milan,
1904), p. 215; A. Zardo, “‘ Padova al tempo di Dante,” in Nuova antologia, Ser. v, CXLVI
(1910), 88; Holbrook, Portraits of Dante from Giotto to Raffael (London, 1911), pp. 128-129;
A. Belloni, “‘Nuove osservazioni sulla dimora di Dante in Padova,” in Nuovo archivio veneto,
N. S., XLI (1921), 40-80 (Belloni argues that Benvenuto’s statement is reliable: his argu-
ments do not seem to me valid); and A. Moschetti, ‘* Questioni cronologiche giottesche,” in
Atti e memorie della R. Accademia di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti di Padova, XX XVII (1921; known
to me only through the unsigned notice in Giornale dantesco, XXV, 1921, 80-81).
1 IT am gladly indebted to my colleague Professor Rudolph Altrocchi for securing for
me photographs and books used in this study. The plates are made, in accordance with per-
mission asked and received, from photographs of the Fratelli Alinari of Florence. The pho-
tographs are, in the order of the plates, those numbered 1880, 3738, 17250, 3739, 3746, 3745,
17246.
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PRE-GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE: A MIRROR OF THE
SOCIAL-RELIGIOUS RENAISSANCE OF THE
ELEVENTH CENTURY
By LOREN CAREY MACKINNEY
OMEWHERE about 1000 A.D., as Western Europe was recov-
ering from the ravages of more than a century of invasions,
there occurred a marked increase in church-building indicative of
important underlying social and religious changes. This Renais-
sance — for surely the period of Burgundian, Norman, and English
Romanesque churches, and of the transition to the Gothic Cathedral
may be thus designated — derived its primary impulse from im-
mediate native influences which, under the stimulus of powerful re-
ligious forces, interacted with earlier architectural tendencies. Aside
from the strong religious trend, one of the most marked character-
istics of the architectural and social acitvity of this Pre-Gothic
period was its predominantly collectivistic spirit: to a much higher
degree than perhaps in any other age of history, art was produced
for and by whole communities. In architecture, coéperative ten-
dencies are usually more prevalent than in the other arts. Victor
Hugo expressed the feelings of many students of architecture when
he wrote:
The grandest productions of architecture are not so much individual
as social works, rather the offspring of nations in labor than the inventions
of genius. . . . Every wave of time superinduces its alluvion, every genera-
tion deposits its stratum upon the structure, every individual brings his
stone. Such is the process of the bees, such that of the beavers, such that
of men.!
In church-building during the eleventh century one finds notable
examples of such coéperative activity. The building of Romanesque
churches in this period was, for example, indicative of a tendency
which, as it developed later, characterized the High Middle Age and
1 The Hunchback of Notre Dame, iii, 1.
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its new social-religious processes. This new collectivistic spirit was
also manifest in pilgrimages, in the cult of relics and of the saints,
in group heresies, in the Truce and Peace of God, and in the monastic
revivals of the late eleventh century. It is in the various regions of
France that one finds not only the highest developments in mediaeval
architecture, but also the clearest evidences of this new spirit.
The eleventh-century Renaissance, this strange popular enthu-
siasm for more and greater churches, is mirrored in two phases of
church-building, namely the change in quantity and the change
in quality. While the increased quantity is important in that it re-
flects the speed of social evolution, the change in quality, the new
methods of building, and so forth, are of even greater significance;
for therein especially will be found the expression of group activity
and of a new social psychology.
The increased, and often enthusiastic, architectural activity
around the year 1000 is recorded in no uncertain terms by contem-
poraries. Raoul Glaber’s well-known passage, which was written
about 1030, vividly expresses the feelings one who was a keen ob-
server and who during his lifetime had many opportunities of be-
coming familiar with social and religious conditions. He remarked on
the fact that
all Christian people were vying with one another in establishing new
churches; so that the world seemed to be putting off its old garments and
was everywhere putting on a white vestment of new churches. Every-
where the faithful were changing over the churches of their bishops, the
monasteries of their saints, or their small village chapels."
In another passage concerning the building of Abbot William’s
church at Dijon, he mentions the fact that “all Gaul was building
more wonderful churches than ever before.” ? The anonymous
recorder of the building and dedication of the church of Saint Remi,
writing about 1005, also mentioned the many churchmen of his time
1 Radulphus Glaber, Historia, ed. Prou (Paris, 1838), iii, 4; in his own monastery at
Dijon, a new crypt was begun in 1001.
2 Idem, Vita S. Guilelmi Abb. S. Benegni Divionensi, c.q., in Migne, CXLII, 710-11;
also, V. Mortet, Recueil de Textes relatifs 4 Uhistoire de V Architecture... en France au Moyen
wee (Paris; Picard, 1911), p. 5.
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Pre-Gothic Architecture 13
who were renovating or restoring churches throughout Gaul.’
Within a half-century the movement had spread to Normandy, and
chroniclers such as Orderic Vital were impressed with the fact that
in those regions princes, as well as churchmen, were founding mon-
asteries.* William of Jumiéges asserted that after the middle of the
century the Norman nobles “vied with one another in building
churches on their estates,” and in founding monasteries.* In England
after the Conquest, according to William of Malmesbury, “one
might see everywhere in villages and towns monasteries of the new
style arising; for the nobles felt that day to be lost which they had
not celebrated by some deed of magnificence.” * William writes
again of the new style of building “‘first introduced into England by
Edward the Confessor at Westminster, and since emulated by almost
all in a most sumptuous manner;’’® elsewhere he asserts that in his
time “monastic flocks were increasing on all sides, while monasteries
of old orders but of new architectural style were arising.” ° In Aqui-
taine during the last quarter of the eleventh century the pious
chronicler, Martinus Pictavensis, exclaimed over the religious fervor
of his age as exemplified in the many Cluniac monasteries scattered
abroad, and still more definitely, in those founded by the Dukes of
Aquitaine.’ It would seem that from the beginning to the end of
the century, from the Ile-de-France to Aquitaine and from Burgundy
to the Normanized British Isles, contemporary historians were con-
scious that their age was displaying unusual activity in church-
building and increased religious enthusiasm.
In a much more mechanical way and with little realization of the
import of such events, most monastic annalists as early as the tenth
1 Historia dedicationis basilicae S. Remi, in Mortet, op. cit., pp. 89-40: ‘‘Airardus abbas
. . . cum sagaci intenderet animo plures dominici gregis pastores sua aetate per Gallias enituisse
qui ecclesias suas ex uetustate in potiorem in eius quae sibi commissa erat renouatione.””
2 Ordericus Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, in Bouquet and others, ed., Recueil des His-
toriens des Gaules et de la France (Paris, 1840 ff), XI, 224; also edited separately by Le Prévost
(Paris, 1911); also translated into English by Forester (London: Bohn, 1835), Bk. I, pp.
457, 469; Bk. X, pp. 58 ff.
3 William of Jumiéges, Historiae Normannorum, VI, 22, in Mortet, op. cit., 151.
4 William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Regum Anglorum, V, 3; ed. by Stubbs in Rolls Series
XC.
5 Ibid., 2. 6 Jbid., 3.
7 Bouquet, op. cit., XI, 119-20.
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century were recording from time to time the joint activity of nobles
and clergy; the nobles furnished the means, the monks carried out
out the actual building operations.' Toward the millenial year ac-
tivity increased: besides numerous small foundations, extensive
1 In France churches were built in great numbers; e.g., 903 ‘Cella Balmae,’ rebuilt by
monks (Bouquet, op. cit., IX, 692); 919 at Vaucluse, cathedral rebuilt (E. O’Reilly, How
France Built Her Cathedrals, London: Harpers, 1921, p. 510); 911 at Rouen, church endowed
by Rollo (ibid., 510); 920 at Vienne, Church of St Pierre rebuilt (A. K. Porter, Medieval
Architecture, New Haven, 1912, I, 186); 903 ff., at Tours, Church of St Julian built, dedicated
in 927 (ibid., I, 186; Bouquet, op. cit., IX, 52); tower built in 966 (J. Bourasse, Archéologie
Chrétienne, Tours, 1878, p. 154); after 903 at St Ambin, Valliéres, and Cigogne near Tours,
parish churches were built on urging of archbishop (ibid., p. 153); 936 at Jumiéges, Chapel of
St Pierre built by William Longsword (Porter, Med. Arch., I, 198; E. W. Church, Saint
Anselm (London, 1881), p. 17; 939 at Chinon, Abbey of St Maxime built by Archbishop
Theotolon of Tours (Bourasse, op. cit., p. 153); 940 at Limoges, castella built (Ademar de
Chabannes, Chronicon, ed. by J. Chavann, Paris, 1897, iii, 25); 942 at Gourge, Deux Sevres,
church built (Porter, Med. Arch., I, 198); 942 at Dolensis Burgus chapel built by monks
(Bouquet, op. cit., IX, 197); 944 at Orléans, Church of St Ernulf rebuilt by ciues (ibid., IX,
15); 946 at Tournus, abbey rebuilt (O'Reilly, loc. cit., p. 336); 946 at Clermont, cathedral built
(ibid., p. 336); 960 at Montier-en-Der, Haute-Marne, abbey built (Porter, Med. Arch., I, 186);
962 at Chartres, Hépital of Church of St Bryce built (zbid., I, 198); 965 at Loches, Church of
Notre Dame built by Count Geoffrey (Bourasse, op. cit., p. 154); 975 at Lodéve, church
dedicated (Bouquet, op. cit., IX, 98); 970 ff. at Sens, cathedral rebuilt after fire (F. Miltoun,
Cathedrals of North France, Boston, 1905, p. 379); 982 at Marmoutier, church built by Eudes
of Blois (Bourasse, op. cit., p. 154); 984 at Périgueux, cathedral built (C. Moore, The Develop-
ment and Character of Gothic Architecture, New York, 1906, p. 42); 989 at Noyon, church built
(Miltoun, op. cit., p. $75); 987 at Fleury, Church of St Mary (Bouquet, op. cit., TX, 142);
989 at Saumur, Monastery of St Louand built by abbot (Bourasse, op. c#., p. 154); 990 at
Bourgueil, abbey founded by Countess Emma (ibid., p. 154); 990 at Poitiers, Church of St
Hilaire founded by Adele of Angouléme (Porter, Med. Arch., I, 177); 996 at Le Mans, Church
of Notre Dame de la Couture rebuilt after devastation by Norsemen, by means of gifts by
the Count (ibid., I, 189); at Fécamp, monastery built by Richard I (O'Reilly, loc., cit., p. 496),
who also founded many churches for canons and monks throughout Normandy (Bouquet,
op. cit., X, 142); at Etampes, Senlis, Avignon, Carcassone, and Limoges churches were begun
(C. Pfister, Etudes sur le Régne de Robert le Pieux, Paris, 1885, p. 324); 997 at Beauvais,
Basse Ouvre Church begun by the bishop (O'Reilly, loc. cit., p. 224; Porter, Med. Arch., I,
176); 998 at Montier-en-Der, monastic church built (F. Simpson, A History of Architectural
Development, London: Longmans, Green, 1913, II, 196); about 1000 many churches were begun
in Poitou and Vendée (Bourasse, op. cit., p. 155). Many other churches, of uncertain dates,
were built in southern France (O'Reilly, loc. cit., 351; Porter, Med. Arch., I, 198 f.); crypts
were built at St Quentin, Amiens, Chartres, Orléans, Auxerre, Flavigny, Rheims, etc., during
the tenth century (O’Reilly, op. cit., p. 224). In Bouquet (op. cit., X, passim, cf., index) are
records of many tenth-century churches founded by nobles and built by monks; although
there is no mention of interest or activity by the populace as a whole in any of these cases, it
is possible that toward the end of the century when interest in building became more intense
there may have been some group activity, which however was unmentioned in the meagre
annals. For tenth-century church building in Normandy, cf. below, pp. 15, 16; in England,
cf. below, pp. 17 ff.
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Pre-Gothic Architecture 15
operations were commenced on large churches in various parts of
France.! During the opening years of the eleventh century, in the
Ile-de-France the spirit of codperation in church-building found its
expression and ideal in Robert the Pious, a much lauded founder of
monasteries and churches.? In the neighboring Low Countries, the
same enthusiasm for religion in general and church-building in par-
ticular is to be noted. At the building of the Abbey of St Trond
near Liége, there occurred a remarkable example of popular coéper-
ation.* In the Loire valley, Fulk the Black of Anjou played a réle
similar to that of Robert the Pious. In fits of remorse and penitence
he founded Beaulieu Abbey near Loches, St Florent Abbey at
Saumur, St Nicholas Abbey near Angers, and Ste Trinité near his
wife’s nunnery. He and his son Geoffrey established many other
churches and monasteries.‘ South of the Loire, the dukes and
nobles, either from pious or mercenary impulses, aided their bishops
and abbots in founding churches and monasteries.’ Dukes William
VIII and William IX of Aquitaine were second to none in their zeal
for church building.®
It was in Normandy, however, that the ruling class caught and
gave expression to the spirit of the age most rapidly and most com-
pletely. As early as 940 William Longsword, in refounding Jumiéges
Abbey, showed how quickly the Norse church-destroyers could be-
come church-builders.’? Later, when Robert the Pious was acquiring
1 From 990 on, the records show many great churches begun in Normandy, Poitou, and
Vendée (cf. above, p. 14, note 1; Pfister, op. cit., p. 324; Bourasse, op. cit., p. 155; Simpson,
op. cit., II, 186). The history of church building around the year 1000 furnishes interesting
evidence as to the improbability of the curious myth concerning a millenia] panic.
2 Eighteen monasteries and six churches are credited to him from 996 to 1031 (Bouquet,
op. cit., X, 115). Many monastic churches were founded, some by Robert, others by the great
dukes; among them were churches at Angers, Limoges, Saumur, Dijon, Fleury, Rheims,
Tours, etc., Monastic churches were prominent until about 1025, when cathedrals (e.g., at
Orléans, Chartres, Cambrai, Coutances, Angers, Vienne) came into prominence.
3 Cf. below, p. 28. * Mortet, op. cit., p. 17; O'Reilly, op. cit., pp. 304-05.
5 Tenth-century churches at Puy, Auch, Périgueux, Poitiers, Bordeaux, etc., were com-
pleted or rebuilt. Jbid., pp. 318 ff.; Simpson, op. cit., II, 203 ff.; Moore, Development of Gothic,
p. 42; Mortet, op. cit., pp. 57, 86, 141; Bouquet, op. cit., X, 177 (Limoges).
6 E.g., churches at Bordeaux (St Croix, St Seurin, St André), at Poitiers (Notre Dame,
St Hilary), assistance to Bishop of Chartres, etc., (ibid. XI, 119-20; O'Reilly, op. cit., pp.
318 ff.; A. Lenoir, Architecture Monastique (Paris, 1852), I, 31-2; II, 9-11, 24).
7 Porter, Med. Arch., I, 290-1, 242-3; O'Reilly, op. cit., pp. 23 ff., 473 ff. By 1000 Ber-
nay, Fécamp, etc., had been founded.
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his name and reputation for piety, the Norman dukes were, fully as
ardently and perhaps more astutely, founding monasteries and
churches throughout their domains.! The reign of Duke William
the Conqueror was the high-water mark: he speaks of ten founda-
tions by his father and of twenty-three during his own reign, and
expresses the hope that his sons will continue such works of piety.”
The Norman barons, inspired by such an example, and perhaps im-
pressed with the possibilities of financial profit, soon rivaled their
duke by establishing the Trinité-de-Monte at Rouen, St Pierre-sur-
Dives, Conches, Lire, Bec, Evroult, Cormeilles, and other monastic
churches.’ William of Jumiéges’s impression as to the enthusiasm and
rivalry of the nobles in church building,‘ is corroborated by the actual
records of numerous foundations by Roger de Toeni, Goscelin de
Archis, Hugh Grentemaesimilia, and others.> The example set by
the duke and his barons led the people to aid in building operations;
on some occasions, with both gifts and labor. It is evident that in
Norman church-building, the dukes, barons, and people were de-
veloping habits of codperation.*®
1 Richard I and Richard II started or carried on building operations at Fontanelle,
Fécamp, Cerisy-le-Forét, Jumiéges, Mont St Michel, St Quen, etc., William of Malmesbury,
op. cit., ii, 10, 18; R. W. Church, St. Anselm (London, 1881), pp. 17 ff.; O'Reilly, op. cit.,
pp. 496, 501.
2 Ibid., pp. 473 ff.; Ordericus Vitalis, op. cit., vii, in Bouquet, op. cit., XII, 621; Porter,
Med. Arch., 1, 243, also index s.v. Caen, Coutances, Rouen, etc.; Church, Anselm, pp. 45 ff.;
William of Malmesbury, op. cit., V, 2, 3.
3 Mortet, op. cit., pp. 45 ff.; Church, Anselm, p. 18; O'Reilly, op. cit., pp. 25, 395, 473 ff.,
510; Porter, Med. Arch., 1, 243 ff. Ibid., 1, 293, gives an account of William’s magister aulaeque
et camerae princeps building a church at Bocherville, at his own expense. A. Leach, The Schools
of Medieval England (London: Methuen, 1917), pp. 97 ff., describes most interestingly the
building operations at Bec. * Above, p. 13.
5 Ordericus Vitalis, op. cit., in Bouquet, op. cit., XI, 223 ff.; Church, Anselm, pp. 17 ff.
6 At Evroult in 1066, there were “munificent contributions by the brethren and friends
of the abbot,”’ and both the monks and the “faithful” assisted in the building. (Ordericus
Vitalis, op. cit., I, 457 ff.; X, 58.) There must have been much activity of this kind in the
building of the numerous parish churches, which existed in almost as great profusion in Nor-
mandy, then as now (Catholic Encyclopedia, XI, 104). If, as William of Malmesbury asserted
(op. cit., I11, 308), William’s increased revenues after the Conquest, led to more lavish building
activity than before in Normandy, much of this must have been on small churches, since
Bayeux was the only great cathedral erected there during that period (Porter, Med. Arch.,
I, 245 ff.). The silence of the chroniclers as to the building of small parish churches is by no
means proof of the absence of activity. Note the situation in the Ile-de-France where, accord-
ing to the chronicles there was little building during the latter half of the eleventh century;
Porter (ibid., I, 245 ff.), however, has listed extant remains of over sixty small churches built
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Pre-Gothic Architecture 17
Great as was Norman zeal for church-building at home, it was
overseas that the followers of William found a still more fertile field
of operations. In England, Norman enthusiasm for architecture and
building, somewhat like Norman political genius, was given free rein
and developed quickly, unhampered by traditions of the past.
Anglo-Saxon architecture, which had developed rapidly during St
Dunstan’s Benedictine reform and under patron monarchs such as
Cnut and Edward the Confessor,' quickly succumbed to the domi-
nating Norman style which even before the Conquest had been
filtering into England.? Such influences were multiplied and inten-
during that period. In England, also, in addition to the great noble- and clergy-endowed
cathedrals, there were, according to Domesday, almost as many parish churches as today;
on these, much building must have been done; cf. A. Thompson, Historical Growth of the
English Parish Church (Cambridge University Press, 1811), p. 10.
1 Before 1000 there were important works of architecture at Oxford, Durham, Worcester,
Ripon, St Albans, Ely, Bangor, etc.; cf. C. Oman, England before the Norman Conquest (5th
ed., London, 1923), p. 449; C. Power, English Medieval Architecture (London: Talbot, 1923
passim; H. Traill, Social England (London, 1894), I, 116, 299, 319. Aethelstan’s (925-40)
laws encouraged ceorls to obtain four hides of land with a church thereon, thus obtaining
knighthood (E. Cutts, Parish Priests and their People in the Middle Ages in England, London,
1898, p. 51). Edgar (959-75) boasted that forty monasteries had been restored during his
and Dunstan’s reform régime. An interesting example, was the building of the church at
Ramsey in 968; this was looked upon with wonder by those used to “the old-fashioied method
of building.”” One wonders whether the new style of architecture or the new zeal for building
was the more notable feature. G. Baldwin Brown (Arts in Early England, London: Mur-
ray, 1903, I, 241 ff.) gives interesting details of the preparations, the gathering of materials
demanded by the masons, the hiring of both skilled and unskilled workmen who were “ in-
spired as much by the warmth of pious devotion as by the desire for pay,” etc. During the
first quarter of the eleventh century, Cnut founded many churches, perhaps for the most
part as restorations of what his countrymen had destroyed; among them, Cambridge, Green-
stead in Essex, Bury St Edmunds, etc. (Cutts, loc. cit., p. 37; Powers, loc. cit., p. 440). Edward
the Confessor built many stone churches in the old Anglo-Saxon style. William of Malmes-
bury (op. cit., V, 2, 3) tells of Cnut and his nobles, both Danish and English, making gifts at
dedication ceremonies; also of Léofric and Harold, toward the middle of the century, giving
lands and money to Coventry, Wenlock, Waltham, etc., Parish communities were undoubtedly
affected by such revivals, for the parish church was the centre of the vigorous, if not always
pious, rural life (Cf. Cutts, op. cit., p. 66 ff., for Edmund’s Synod of London and provisions for
repair of churches; also Edgar’s action against irreverence, etc., in churches and church-yards).
Such local conditions, with their strong group tendencies, help to explain the rapid and uni-
versal spread of building enthusiasm, and suggest an unrecorded undercurrent of parish church-
building by the people, in addition to the recorded foundations of nobility and clergy.
2 In the seventh century, Frankish masons were imported to build an abbey “‘in the Roman
manner with stones” (H. H. Statham, A Short Critical History of Architecture, London:
Batsford, 1912, p. 307). In the eleventh century, Edward the Confessor brought masons from
Normandy to build Westminster Church “after that kind of style which now (William of
Malmesbury’s time) almost all attempt to rival” (William of Malmesbury, op. cit., ii, 13;
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sified when William brought to England his Norman ecclesiastics and
barons. In fact, more churches were built in England during this
period than anywhere in any mediaeval half-century, save in the
Ile-de-France during the period of the Gothic cathedrals. Newly
installed Norman clerics not only constructed churches to meet new
needs, but even demolished Anglo-Saxon Churches of great beauty
in order to replace them with more splendid edifices.!. During this
period were begun many of the English cathedrals that are still
treasured as relics of the great era of church-building. Under the
Conqueror’s sons and during Stephen’s troubled reign, church-build-
ing continued undiminished, by both clergy and nobility.’ It is
possible that most of the great churches and cathedrals were built
without the enthusiastic support of the native populace, who must
have seen in them the heavy hand of the hated foreigner. Occa-
sionally the people responded willingly to appeals for assistance, as
in the case of the Norman ¢leric, Abbot Ingulf, who rebuilt Croy-
land Abbey in 1091 after a fire.* To what extent the populace itself
W. Lethaby, Westminster Abbey and the King’s Craftsmen, London: Duckworth, 1911, pp.
99 ff.). Near Shrewsbury in 1056 a Norman named Roger founded a “ castle of monks where
cowled champions may resist Behemoth in continual battle (Church, Anselm, pp. 102 ff.).
Churches at Earls Barton and Coshampton (Traille, op. cit., I, 198 ff.) and castles at several
places were built by Normans before the Conquest (Medieval England; a new edition of
F. Barnard’s Companion to English History, edited by H. W. C. Davis, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1924, pp. 95 ff.; Oman, op. cit., pp. 648-49.)
1 Little regret was shown at demolishing old churches. Even the Anglo-Saxon abbot of
Worcester, Wulfstan, said, “‘ nos inquit miseri Sanctorum opera (referring to the sainted Bishop
Oswald’s work) destruimus ut nobis laudem comparemus” (William of Malmesbury, quoted
in Brown, op. cit., II, 318). Ordericus Vitalis told of the enthusiasm with which the people
helped tear down old buildings; his own father, a Norman priest, replaced an Anglo-Saxon
parish church with a new all-stone edifice (Cutts, op. cit., p. 90). At Chichester, Stigand’s
recently erected wooden cathedral was rebuilt in stone, as were other churches (ibid., pp.
359, 503). A Norman bishop at Exeter who failed to replace the old cathedral was considered
ambitionless, and his successor hastened to the work (ibid., p. 318). It was undoubtedly
ambition, rather than failure to appreciate Anglo-Saxon architecture, that motivated the de-
stroyers of most of these churches (Brown, op. cit., II, $14).
2 Cf. above, p. 13, for William of Malmsbury’s impressions. Powers, op. cit., p. 95
(chart of buildings) and passim.
3 Neighbors and people from a distance responded to his call for aid. Cf. document
translated in S. Maitland, The Dark Ages (London, 1890), pp. 286-92. Perhaps the fact that
there had been a great catastrophe, or that the church was a monastic foundation, helps to
explain the strange enthusiasm; possibly the chronicler exaggerated for pious reasons; it
may be that the native populace did not respond. Usually the people aided the monastic
clergy more readily than the secular.
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Pre-Gothic Architecture 19
codperated in the building and repairing of the four hundred or more
rural churches that existed in England in the late eleventh century,
the chroniclers leave us in almost total darkness. It seems, however,
quite clear that, in the wake of the Danish invaders, England like
Normandy and France experienced a revival or acceleration of
church-building, in which clergy, nobility, and probably the people
as well, eagerly joined.
Although the Normans led Western Europe in quantity of church-
building, the real climax to eleventh-century architectural develop-
ment took place in France proper. Toward the end of the century
the Ile-de-France and those neighboring regions that were already
coalescing with it to form the nucleus of modern France gave birth
to a style that ultimately became almost universal under the name
of ‘Gothic.’ ! During the first half of the eleventh century few out-
standing works of architecture were completed in the Ile-de-France;
the great building operations were in Champagne, Burgundy, Nor-
mandy, and Touraine. Later on, however, records testify to the
construction of many small parish churches, usually under the direc-
tion of the secular clergy.? These obscure churches, erected by
unknown builders supported by parish communities under the
leadership of their own priests, are perhaps of greater significance
in the history of mediaeval church-building and of social psychology
than the more famous works of great churchmen or nobles. Raoul
Glaber and his fellow chroniclers must have had in mind many
such enterprises when they penned their glowing descriptions of the
architectural revival of their age.
A clearly marked change in the quality of church-building also
occurred in the eleventh century. In new kinds of building material,
new styles of architecture, and new classes of builders, can be seen
1 Moore, Development of Gothic, pp. 6 ff., has a good summary.
2 The Gothic cathedral seems to have been born in small, rather than large, churches;
under the direction of secular, rather than regular, clergy. Porter, Med Arch., IT, 63-81, 200 ff.,
lists many parish churches. The large churches of surrounding regions (e.g., at Tours,
Saumur, Orléans, Chartres, Vendéme, Dijon, Veezlay, and the church at Cluny, the largest
in Christendom at that time) furnish a strange contrast. Ibid., II, 12-22; Bourasse, op. cit.,
Mortet, op. cit., pp. xxxii ff.; Moore, op. cit., p. 43; see above, pp. 14 ff.
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the reflection of new social aims, ideals, and habits. The evolution
of the all-stone church, one of the distinctive features of mediaeval
architecture, was connected with, and accompanied, the develop-
ment of popular codperation.? The rise of schools of architecture and
of masons’ gilds in place of unorganized labor, was dependent upon
the increase in stone-work. The change from monastic to lay par-
ticipation, and from individual to group activity in church-building,
was likewise closely connected with the popularity of the all-stone
church. Even though stone was quarried and shipped in small
blocks, the poor roads and primitive means of transportation created
a situation where mass labor was necessary. The exploitation by
the Church of the religious enthusiasm of the people in cart-hauling
pilgrimages and processions, for instance, was one means of obtain-
ing the unlimited man-power that Antiquity found in slave labor,
and for which modern builders have substituted machinery.
New ideas in building, developing parallel with the Gothic style,
also reflect new social and religious attitudes. Everywhere there
appeared enlarged and enclosed choirs, raised chancels over burial
crypts, radiating chapels for the expanding cult of the saints and
their relics, ambulatories for processions, and immense naves, tran-
septs, and porches for the convenience of pilgrims and large festival
crowds.’ Many changes in church-building that were factors in the
1 Architecture as a mirror of social] development is treated in an interesting manner by
M. L. Vitet, Monographie de I Eglise de Notre Dame de Noyon (Paris, 1845), pp. 125, 127,
131; C. Norton, Historical Studies of Church Building in the Middle Ages (New York, 1908),
p. 12; R. A. Cram, Six Lectures on Architecture (Chicago: University Press, 1917), 4, 8; idem,
The Substance of Gothic (Boston: Marshal Jones, 1917), p. 15.
2 Quarried and dressed stone, in place of brick or rubble, was characteristic of building
during this period; e.g., at Como, Italy (A. K. Porter, Lombard Architecture, New Haven,
1918, I, 33 ff), in Auvergne where lava stone was used along with brick, in France (Lenoir,
op. cit., II, 12), Norman stone from Caen, quarries of Nivernais (C. Enlart, Manuel de I’ Arché-
ologie Frangaise, Paris, 1902, I, 79), stone from Pontoise used at St Denis, lime- and sand-stone
quarries of northern England, Hereford, Shropshire, and Cheshire (Powers, op. cit., pp. 89,
343-4). The Gothic cathedral region of France used stone from Tournai, Ghent, Boulogne,
Thérouanne, Pontoise, etc. (Mortet, op. cit., pp. 172-8). Considerable timber was still used;
e.g., at St Denis (Porter, Med. Arch., II, 194 ff., gives documents) and on English parish
churches. For an unusual case (a stone church replaced by one of wood), see Mortet, op. cit.,
p. xxxvii. See also Lenoir, op. cit., I], 274 ff.
3 L. Hourticq, Art in France (New York, 1911), p. 13, suggests that pilgrimages not only
made necessary the building of larger churches in order to house the pilgrim crowds and to
advertise the local saint and relics, but that in the course of time the increased gifts often paid
the cost of the new church and then yielded big dividends. Mortet, op. cit., p. xxxviii,
Pre-Gothic Architecture 21
emergence of the Gothic style seem to have arisen in response to the
demands of an increasingly collectivistic trend. The conditions
underlying the evolution of Gothic architecture were indicative of
the new social unity of the realm of France during the second half of
the eleventh century. With the increase of royal power, economic
prosperity, and order, pilgrimages increased and church-building
was accelerated. A high degree of group consciousness seems to have
been at work among the various classes of French society long before
the famous mass movement known as the First Crusade. The period
of group movements among students, merchants, masons, and here-
tics was the period during which the first Gothic churches were
built by groups of people in little-known parishes under the direction
of a few skilled workers and their local priests.’ It is certain that
the early Gothic churches grew out of community effort, whether the
evolution be traced through the secular clergy and their parishioners
codperating in the erection of parish churches, or through codpera-
tive enterprises led by the monastic clergy, such as the building of
Suger’s abbey-church at St Denis in 1140.? In either case, it was
discusses the influence of relics on architecture. The relation of the increase of the cult of saints
to the building of chapels around the apse is touched upon by Lenoir, op. cit., II, 37 ff.; Porter,
Med. Arch., I, 149 ff.; Norton, op. cit., pp. 15 ff.; Cram, Siz Lectures, p. 21, etc. I believe that
there should be emphasis not only on the increase in cults, and attendance thereon, but on
the increase in the size of the crowds (due to the increase of group activity), in mass pilgrim-
ages and the like.
1 It seems probable that the Gothic style was produced during the last half of the eleventh
and the first quarter of the twelfth century by experiments on small churches of the Ile-
de-France and vicinity; e.g. St Germain-des-Prés, St Martin-des-Champs, Poissy, Cambronne
Berzy-le-Sec, Bury, Laffaux, etc. The long evolution culminated in 1130 in the parish church
of St Germer-du-Fly, which is probably the first complete Gothic church. For the evolution
of the Gothic, cf. Porter, Med. Arch., II, 12 ff., 63 ff.; Cram, Substance of Gothic, pp. 128 ff.;
Moore, Development of Gothic, pp. 29 ff., 51-70.
2 Cram (Substance of Gothic, p. 115) and Enlart (op. cit., II, 629 ff.) hold to the theory
of strong Cistercian influences in the origin of the Gothic style. Porter (Med. Arch., II, 172 ff.)
and Vitet (op. cit., p. 125) deny it-on good grounds, I believe. The fact that the two great
churches built in the Ile-de-France during this period (viz., St Remi about 1005, and St Denis
in 1140) were built by Benedictines, and that St Bernard severely criticized the new tendencies
in architecture as ultra-worldly (Porter, Lombard Arch., 1, 170 ff.; Mortet, op. cit., pp. xxxii,
165, 360 ff.), would seem to exonerate the Cistercians from complicity in developing the
Gothic style. To be sure, by 1100, under the leadership of Stephen Harding, they had com-
pleted sixteen abbeys and begun seven more (William of Malmesbury, op. cit., V, 4); all,
however, in their characteristically ascetic style. Enlart (op. cit., II, 629 ff., discusses the
building activities of the various monastic orders. O'Reilly (op. cit., pp. 16 ff., 28 ff.) suggests
that progress in styles of building was evident in all regions of France, among monastic
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groups of hard-working masons that perfected the ogival method of
building, and groups of parishioners that made possible the work.
Like the First Crusade, this period—and the codperative activity
displayed in its building operations—not only marks the beginning
of an important epoch, but, perhaps even more significantly, indi-
cates the culmination of an evolution that had been going on for a
half-century or more.
The most significant factors in the birth of the Gothic style and
the parallel evolution of codperative community activity, must be
sought in the more practical and humble realm of actual building
operations, such as the provision of funds, materials, and workmen,
and the hauling of stone and mortar. The work of building a church
was twofold; first, the process of causing to be built, i.e., taking the
initiative and providing the necessities; second, the actual construc-
tion, including the making of plans and overseeing the work.' In
both phases of the process, all classes of eleventh-century society
are found codperating to a greater or lesser degree.
Kings, nobles, bishops, and abbots often joined with monastic
orders in providing for the building or repair of monasteries and
abbey-churches.? Tenth-century French chronicles are replete with
records of religious establishments, founded by nobles and built by
monks.’ During the eleventh century there were innumerable foun-
builders in the earlier period, and later on, under secular-clerical and lay influences, in
codperation rather than conflict. Valuable light might be thrown on this problem, by a care-
ful study of the comparative intensity of popular enthusiasm in support of building operations
of secular and regular clergy during the late eleventh century.
1 R. Rosiéres, Histoire de la Société Frangaise au Moyen Age (Paris, 1882), p. 209, gives
a summary of the procedure. Brown, op. cit., II, 241 ff., quotes a document showing the actual
process at Ramsey in 968, viz., preparing materials, getting workmen, digging foundations, etc.
2 E.g., King Cnut founded many churches, repaired others, and gave rich gifts of gold,
silver, jewels, etc. (above, p. 17, note 1); Queen Emma gave towards the building of Winchester
Cathedral (William of Malmesbury, op. cit., ii, 18); Edward the Confessor rebuilt Westminster
(above, p. 17, note 2); William the Conqueror gave lands, etc., for building St Etienne, Caen
(William of Malmesbury, op. cit., v, 3); Robert the Pious endowed the Cathedral of Orléans,
and founded twelve monasteries and six churches (Bouquet, X, 110, 115); the kings of France
and Spain aided in the building of the church at Cluny in 1089 (Viollet le Duc, Dictionaire,
I, 125); in 1083 the king of France gave liberally toward the construction of several churches
(Porter, Med. Arch., II, 16). Cf. below, p. 23, note 2.
3 E.g., Rollo’s church at Rouen, William Longsword’s at Jumiéges (above, p. 15). Cf. Bou-
quet, op. cit., X, passim, also index, for other instances; also O’Reilly, op. cit., pp. 23, 510;
Church, Anselm, p. 17.
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Pre-Gothic Architecture 23
dations by the dukes and lesser nobles of Normandy, Aquitaine,
Anjou, and England.’ Although many such foundations served
primarily the selfish gratification of ambition, expiation of crimes,
or mere religious rivalry,’ kings and princes often displayed a broad
spirit of codperative Christian piety in giving toward the building
or repair of foreign churches.* Occasionally a nobleman, for pious
example or penance, even took a hand at the manual labor.‘ To
just what extent clerical urging or the possibilities of economic profit
were responsible for royal and baronial activity in church-building,
is impossible to estimate. Monasteries and abbey-churches un-
doubtedly contributed to the interests of both the lay patrons and
the monastic possessors. Whatever the motives, church-building
was shot through and through with an enthusiastic spirit of com-
munity effort.
Although the provision of the material means of building was
primarily by royalty or nobility, the planning, supervising, and
carrying out of the actual operations was practically monopolized
1 Above, pp. 13 ff.; Bouquet (op. cit., XII, 621) mentions many others; Mortet (op. cit.)
cites cases of nobles granting timbering or quarrying privileges to builders: e.g., 1080, for
Sauve-Majeure Abbey (p. 260), and 1094 at Nogent le Routrou (p. 288). In 1065 at the build-
ing of the Abbey of Hubert-d’Ardenne, the countess gave money and lodged the operarit
(ibid., p. 192).
2 E.g., William the Conqueror, who when near death gave for the repair of the church at
Nantes which he had burned (William of Malmesbury, op. cit., v, 3); his and Mathilda’s
foundations; Fulk the Black, who refused to restore confiscated church lands yet resented the
refusal of the outraged prelates to consecrate the new monastery where monks were to chant
day and night for the salvation of his soul, and finally imported a cleric from Rome (Garreau,
op. cit., p. 428, note 2; Mortet, op. cit., p. 103); people at Rheims in 1038 donated to the
building fund “pro facinorum suorum abolitione parentumque suorum” (ibid., pp. 41-2; also
below, p. 27, note 3, on indulgences). Wulfstan, Abbot of Gloucester, admitted that building-
clergymen of his day worked for the satisfaction of personal ambition (Brown, op. cit., 313, IT).
Cf. above, p. 20, note 3, for a hint as to unmentioned economic motives often present.
3 E.g., Cnut, William of Aquitaine, etc., aid in rebuilding Chartres after 1020 (William
of Malmesbury, op. cit., ii, 11; Bouquet, op. cit., X, 465 ff.); Apulians and Calabrians gave to
the Bishop of Coutances for rebuilding his cathedral (Mortet, op. cit., p. 7); “Catholic men
from a distance” gave to build St Remi in 1005 (Porter, Med. Arch., II, 206); Raynauld of
Beaune, his wife, and the Duke of Burgundy gave to build Citeaux (Mortet, op. cit., p. 295);
William the Conqueror and his nobles in England gave generously to Norman foundations
(William of Malmesbury, op. cit.,v,3); Siward of Norway, en route to Jerusalem (twelfth cen-
tury), “expended vast sums on churches” in England (ibid.).
* At Verdun, in 1005, Count Frederick carried cement to the masons (Mortet, op. cit.,
pp. 44 ff.), as was often done by noble abbots or noble monks such as Herluin of Bec. (Below,
p. 24, note 3.)
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24 Pre-Gothic Architecture
by clerical groups until late in the eleventh century. During the
tenth century energetic Benedictine and Cluniac monks, besides fur-
nishing the impulse for religious foundations, performed much of the
actual labor. The Cluniacs often sent groups of their own master-
masons to build priories.1_ Most eleventh-century building operations
seem to have been dominated by monastic groups, through trained
architects from schools such as that of William of Volpiano in Nor-
mandy.’ Although they used lay masons and local workmen, monks
themselves often took part in the manual labor, * and thus not only
exemplified their ideal of the obligation and dignity of manual labor,
but also encouraged popular codperation. In all such activities the
Cluniac monks were the leaders until late in the eleventh century.
Even then, although the new monastic orders exercised powerful
collectivistic influences in other lines, because of their anti-cultural
tendencies, they had less effect on architecture than the Cluniacs
and Benedictines.‘ Until about the middle of the eleventh century,
Viollet le Duc, op. cit., I, 180; Porter, Lombard Arch., I, 158 ff.; Mortet, op. cit., index,
8. v. “missions.”
2 Cf. Porter, Lombard Arch., 1, 157-58, for William’s forty churches; Mortet, op. cit., pp.
279 ff., for school at Tiron Monastery; Cram, Substance of Gothic, pp. 84 ff.; Vitet, op. cit.,
p. 121 and Enlart, op. cit., I, 62, for pilgrimages of clerics to various monastic schools of arch-
itects. Clergymen also relied on their local brethren for advice: e.g., at Rheims, 1038-39,
Abbot Airardus, and later Abbot Theodoricus took the advice of the wiser monks and elders of
the diocese (Mortet, op. cit., pp. 39-41; Porter, Med. Arch., II, 206 ff.); Herluin of Bec con-
sulted others (Mortet, op. cit., p. 46).
3 E.g., the Abbot of Ramsey in 968 “‘got ready all that the forethought of the masons
demanded” (Brown, op. cit., II, 241); Abbot Suger at St Denis, 1140 ff., consulted local car-
penters and men of Paris (Porter, Med. Arch., II, 194 ff.). For Burgundy and Italy, cf. Porter,
Lombard Arch., I, 157. At Rumelingen (Maitland, op. cit., pp. 362-63); in Bas Languedoc
where in 1036 a bridge-building confraternity of monks existed (Norton, op. cit., p. 109); at
Bec, 1034, where Herluin and Lanfranc worked (Mortet, op. cit., pp. 45 ff.; Lenoir, op. cit., I,
37); at Oise, 1083, five monks built a priory (Porter, Med. Arch., I, 16); at Poitiers, 1080, a
monk-architect worked on Montierneuf church; at Selby, Yorkshire, Abbot Hugues, in mason’s
garb, carried stone; at Pompose Monastery monks worked on the walls. The Benedictine Rule
had always emphasized manual labor; at St Gall in the ninth century the whole congregation
worked all day to set a column in place; at Ramsey in 968, monks worked continually on the
walls (Lenoir, op. cit., I, 36-38). Nobles, turned monks, often worked; e.g., at ‘Cella Balmae,’
903; on the church of Dolensis Burgus, 942 (Bouquet, op. cit., IX, 597, 693); at Evroult,
Herluin worked (O'Reilly, op. cit., 475); at Shrewsbury, 1056, Roger and his family (Church,
Anselm, pp. 102 ff.); at Evroult after 1055 monks and “faithful” assisted (Ordericus Vitalis,
op. cit., i, p. 457 ff.; x, p. 58); Frederick, ex-Count of Verdun, carried mortar as an example to
noble-monks (Mortet, op. cit., pp. 44 ff.). Also below, p. 25, notes 2, 3.
4 Above, p. 21, note 2.
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Pre-Gothic Architecture 25
the secular clergy lagged far behind the monks in building activity,'
while bishops and their assistants, though they often planned
churches, rarely shared in the manual labor.? Rural priests, on
other hand, must have taken as active and whole-hearted a part in
the work on a new church as they did in other parish affairs.’
In all church-building, both monastic and secular, there was
doubtless much non-clerical labor. Even if abbots and bishops were
willing to have their clergy perform humble tasks, and if the canons
and monks were willing to do manual labor, there was scarcely
sufficient man-power in the clerical body te build a church without
lay assistance. There were, during the eleventh century, unorgan-
ized groups of lay-masons who moved from place to place with their
apprentices and families, settling down for a time where a great
building was being erected.‘ In addition to the skilled artisans,
1 Orléans Cathedral was not finished until 1029 (Bouquet, op. cit., X, 110; Mortet, op. cit.,
p. 57). Poitiers Cathedral was started a few years before (ibid., p. 63), and shortly afterwards
cathedrals were begun at Angers, Maguelone, Vienne, and Chartres (ibid., pp. 84, 86, 88;
Bouquet, op. cit., X, 465 ff.). During the second half of the century cathedrals were begun
at Coutances by Geoffrey (Mortet, op. cit., pp. 71-86), at Bayeux (Porter, Med. Arch., II,
288 ff.), and in England at many of the great episcopal centres.
2 There are a few cases: e.g., at Coutances, Auxerre, and Avignon secular canons worked
at building, sculpturing, or painting (Mortet, op. cit., p. lv). Bishops, of course, planned or
supervised the work on their cathedrals (Mortet, op. cit., p. xxxix for Bishop of Cambrai;
William of Malmesbury, op. cit., iv, 352, for Bishop of Norwich).
3 At Rumelingen a priest led his people in assisting a group of monks in building a church
(Mortet, op. cit., pp. 362-63).
4 Vitet’s statement (op. cit., p. 121) that “before the twelfth century not a single religious
edifice was built in Northern Europe without monastic canonical, or ecclesiastical architect,”
is untenable. Most of the following must have been lay master-builders, many of them acting
as supervising architects; e.g., custodes operis at Orléans in 1003 (Mortet, op. cit., pp. 3-4),
viri skilled in architecture at Rheims in 1005 (ibid., pp. 39-41; Porter, Med. Arch., I, 183),
operarius at St Florent, Saumur in 1026 (Mortet, op. cit., p. 19), architecti at Oudenburg,
1056-91 (ibid., p. 174), artifices Franci et Angli at Canterbury in 1070 (ibid., pp. lix, 207 ff.).
Cimentarii or masons were present at Westminster in 1006 (Barnard, op. cit., p. 111), at St
Lucien’s Church, Beauvais in 1078, Lérins, 1073-88, where two of them built a tower, and
Grenoble in 1094 (Mortet, op. cit., pp. 231, 289, 343). Norton, op. cit., p. 26, asserts the ex-
istence of lay artists in France during the eleventh century. Enlart, op. cit., I, 72, cites lay-
men who signed their names to their architectural work; e.g., Hugo Monetaurus at St Hilary’s
Church, Limoges, Umbertus at St Benoft-sur-Loire, Isembardus at Bernay. Porter (Med.
Arch., II, 183-191) believes that, in the building of the vaulted churches of the Ile-de-France
in the late eleventh century, lay master-workmen, like modern contractors, must have made
plans, hired workmen, and worked at the job themselves. These master-masons were the
architects of the cathedrals and churches much more truly than the clergy-employers who
seldom did more than “‘over-look”’ the work. For the twelfth-century lay-masons and arch-
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there were also corvées of church serfs ' and hired laborers from the
region concerned or bands of migratory workers.” In the codperative
work of such skilled and unskilled workers belonging to monastic,
priestly, and lay groups, early Gothic building truly reflects the dis-
tinctively mediaeval spirit of socialized religious activity under the
banner of the Church.
From the standpoint of social evolution, however, the most note-
worthy characteristic of eleventh-century church-building was not
the material contribution of the nobility, the spiritual initiative and
supervisory activity of monastic and secular clergy, nor the hired
labor. There was present a more vital and far-reaching social factor,
namely, popular group participation, evident in the giving of money
and provisions, in the actual manual labor, and in the religious cele-
bration of the accomplished task, the dedication ceremony. Therein
are unsounded depths of mediaeval social psychology.
The mediaeval ecclesiastic was doubtless fully as dependent as
his modern successor upon outside aid for his building programs.
Probably he was as cognizant of the possibilities and as skillful in
employing the proper psychological means for rallying all classes to
the support of a community project, as the clerical leaders of modern
times. Eleventh-century founders of churches in many cases relied
itects, cf. ibid., II, 183-91; Lenoir, op. cit., I, 33, 35; Enlart, op. cit., I, 72; Mortet, op. cit.,
p. lx; by this time the master-masons had ceased to work and merely supervised. For eleventh-
century lay architects in Italy, cf. Porter, Lombard Arch., 1, 12; Med. Arch., II, 182. Mortet,
op. cit., pp. 279 ff., mentions many artisans utriusque ordinis who gathered at Tiron Monas-
tery in 1040 to practice architecture, sculpture, etc.
1 Rosiéres, op. cit., II, 212; Norton, op. cit., pp. 26-27 (workmen supplied by the cleric
employer); Lethaby, Med. Art., I, 44.
2 William of Volpiano used Norman workmen (Porter, Med. Arch., I, 152); at Ramsey
in 968 hired workmen were used (Brown, op. cit., I, 242); at St Albans in 1077 native workmen
were used instead of Normans (Cram, Substance of Gothic, p. 101); at St Denis in the twelfth
century Suger “employed summer and winter a larger number of workmen at great expense”
in order to complete the church (De Consecratione, excerpt translated in Porter, Med. Arch.,
II, 196). A. DuCange, Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis (Paris, 1842), describes the
classes of unattached workers, merchants, and mere wanderers of this period; s. v., albani
(1, 162), mansionarii (IV, 238), extranae or pede puluerosi (V, 172), etc. (I, 96; IV, 236).
Porter, Med. Arch., II, 7, holds that “‘these laborers who went from place to place offering
their services to the highest bidder formed a regularly recognized social class” (“‘guests”’ or
“strangers,” he calls them). So far as eleventh-century building is concerned, I have not
discovered any definite evidences of such migratory laboring classes; the hypothesis is not,
however, improbable.
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Pre-Gothic Architecture 27
on the people of the locality concerned for money, for other con-
tributions, and sometimes for mass labor. It is possible that in some
places the custom of earlier times, when the people were held respon-
sible for the upkeep of the nave of the church, the clergy providing
for the choir, was still in operation. During the eleventh century,
however, appeals for contributions from the populace were made in
places of such varying location and with such frequency as to lead
to the inference that it was almost universal.? In several places, es-
pecially in Northern France and the Low Countries, conuentia or
confraternitates of contributors were organized, and inducements,
such as burial privileges or remission of sins, were offered,’ devices
suggestive of the privileges later accorded the Crusaders, and of in-
dulgences. On the other hand, such popular action was rarely spon-
taneous; clerical manipulation was obvious in most cases, and even
where it was not, there is the possibility that the pious chronicler
withheld facts that might minimize the power of religion. ¢
1 In 944 the ciues of Orléans built a church (Bouquet, op. cit., IX, 15).
? E.g., contributions by parochiani at Coutances (Mortet, op. cit., pp.71-86), at Maguelone
near Montpellier, 1030-60 (ibid., pp. 88-89), and at Vienne, 1030—70 (ibid., pp. 86); by omnes
fideles at Aix in 1070 (ibid., pp. 204-205); ecclesiastici familia and catholici uiri at St Remi in
1039 (ibid., pp. 41-42); omnis plebs at St Florent, Saumur in 1026 (ibid., pp. 17-9); ciues at
Oudenburg, 1056-81 (ibid., p. 169); plurimi at Elne (ibid., p. 200, note 4); populi of Huy
near Liége, 1066 (ibid., p. 200, note 4); rusticani near Poitiers, for Church of St Hilary,
1068-70 (ibid., p. 200); ciues and rusticani of St Riquier (P. Blok, History of People of Nether-
lands, New York, 1898, IV, 30, 36); ciues and rusticani of Cambrai, who also built a wall
around the bishop’s civitas, 1076-92 (Mortet, op. cit., pp. 65 ff.); ciues near Croyland, after
fire of 1091 (Maitland, op. cit., p. 286); parochiani at Rumelingen who aided in building a
monastery (ibid., pp. 362-363); by unnamed peoples at St Benigne’s, Dijon in 1077 (ibid., p.
245), at St Martin’s of Tournai, by donationes fidelium (ibid., p. 290), and at Soissons about
1090, ex eleemosynis fidelium (ibid., p. 291).
3 E.g., at Elne in 1058, Aix in 1070 and 1092, Poitiers, 1068-70, and Huy in 1066 (ibid.,
p. 200, note 4) there were confraternities. The people near St Riquier in unum congregatus
brought their gifts in a procession with songs (Blok, op. cit., IV, 36). At Croyland, 1091, the
Bishop of Lincoln offered a forty-day indulgence to all who gave and assisted (Maitland, op.
cit., p. 286). Cf. also below, p. 28, note 5, and note 4 below, for possible indulgences at Rheims
and Angers.
‘ There is evidence of considerable spontaneity of action at Rheims in 1039 when plures
catholici uiri feruore diuinae religionis ut pro facinorum suorum abolitione parentumque suorum
quorum corpora ibi humata erant, requie, pro posse id opus condigna subsidia studerent suppedi-
tare. Nonulli etiam de ecclesiastica familia suum auxilium prompta impenderunt beneuolentia,
suisque plaustris et bobus tantis incoeptis competentia aduexerunt onera . . .” thus finishing the
work (Mortet, op. cit., pp. 41-42); and also at Oudenburg where the ciues in 1056, and the
habitores in 1091 took the initiative in repairing and rebuilding the church (ibid., pp. 169,
174); and at St Riquier (above, note 3).
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28 Pre-Gothic Architecture
In Northern France and the Low Countries, during the latter
half of the century, many building operations point clearly to the
intense religious enthusiasm and strong group spirit prevalent in
those regions. At Rheims in 1039, under Abbot Theodoricus, an
enthusiastic community enterprise was under way, during which
men were moved by religious emotion to the point of assisting the
workmen with their own wagons and oxen, and possibly with their
own hands.' During the construction of the Abbey of St Trond near
Liége, after 1055, popular codperation expressed itself in a still more
remarkable manner. Abbot Rudolph waxed enthusiastic over the
crowds of men who “labored zealously, joyfully, and unceasingly,
day and night, at their own expense, hauling wagon-loads of building
material from a distance.” Columns brought from Cologne by boat
were loaded on “carts which the people dragged from village to
village by ropes, in a delirium of ardor; finally, after hauling them
through the very depths of the Meuse River, they arrived at St
Trond singing hymns of joy. What could be expected. The walls
were finished speedily and almost the whole roof.” ? At Oudenburg,
in 1056, the citizens took the initiative in building a new church,*
and in the construction of the Monastery at Hasnon near Arras in
1067, popular zeal was evident.‘ At various other places during the
century occurred similar manifestations of group activity where
both materials and actual labor were furnished by the populace.*®
It is probable that such highly emotional episodes of community
spirit were strongly influenced by the example of monastic codpera-
tion in manual labor. The most notable cases were in connection
with the building of monastic edifices in the Low Countries where
1 See page 27, note 2.
2 Gesta Abb. Trud., in Mortet, op. cit., pp. 157-158.
3 Above, p. 27, note 4.
4 Bouquet, op. cit., XI, 109-110.
5 E.g., at St Riquier (above, p. 27, note 3) people provide gifts and possibly labor; at
Evroult, 1055-66, monks and “faithful” assist in actual work (Ordericus Vitalis, op. cit., I,
457, 467 ff., X, 58); at Rumelingen, priest and parishioners assist monks in work (Mortet,
op. cit., pp. 362-363); at Conques, about 1035, omnes qui aderant humeris lacertisque assist in
moving cartloads of stone (ibid., p. 106); at Cambrai in 1076 a wall was built ciuibus auzilian-
tibus (ibid., pp. 67-68); at Croyland all who gave and aided in the building work received
forty-days indulgence (Maitland, op. cit., p. 286); Vienne Cathedral was built cum parochian-
orum suorum adiutorio (Mortet, op., cit., p. 86).
‘
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Pre-Gothic Architecture 29
monasticism was very prominent. Noble abbots like Herluin and
Lanfranc, rather than noble bishops, were lauded by the chroniclers
for performing menial service with cement hods, clad in the garb of
common workmen. The monastic ideal of coéperative manual labor
doubtless exerted considerable influence upon the laity by means of
either legendary or truthful accounts of noblemen outside the mo-
nastic life who displayed their zeal and humility in similar ways.
It was doubtless this monastic influence that gave to mass demon-
strations their distinctly penitential character with the consequent
tendency toward the levelling of class barriers and toward emotional
abandon. It will be noted that such processions as occurred at St
Riquier and St Trond! were also a manifestation of the increasing
popularity of mass pilgrimages. In the opening years of the twelfth
century, as enthusiasm for crusading-pilgrimages found wider ex-
pression, the emotional tendency in community church-building
became more intensive and spontaneous in many places.? The
climax came just after 1140, when a widespread but short-lived
mania for cart-hauling became prevalent, especially throughout
Normandy and at Chartres.’ This phenomenon, like the Crusades,
1 Above, pp. 27-28.
2 In 1103 people near Tulle helped on the monastery prout cuique facultas et bona
uoluntas attribuit (Mortet, op. cit., p. 15); in 1112 two paralytics, healed at Beaugency by the
Laon Relic Circus, followed the monks to Laon and joined in the work on the cathedral (Heri-
mannus Tornacensis, Miracula S. Mariae Laudunensis, i, 4; Migne, CLVI, 961-1018); in 1109
a confraternity of pauperes rebuilt Morigny Abbey unaided by nobility (Mortet, op. cit., p.
p. 341); in 1110 near Amboise the people built a priory in response to the bishop’s urging
(ibid., p. 342); in 1120 at Prémontré Norbert’s friends contended with one another in building
the monastery (Norbert, Vita, c. 12, Mon. Ger. Hist., XII, 669); at Fonguillem near Bazas,
1126-38, the bishop urged people to join a contribution-confraternity by promising a forty-day
indulgence (Mortet, op. cit., p. $375); Tarragone had a similar confraternity in 1127 (ibid.,
p. 341, note 3); at Bruges, at the same time, clergy and people worked feverishly, tearing down
buildings and building a wall for defence (Histoire du Meurtre de Charles le Bon, Comte de
Flandre, Paris, 1891, ed. by H. Pirenne, c. 25); J. J. Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life .. .
(London: Unwin, 1921), pp. 40, 45, mentions later orders of bridge-building monks, e.g., at
Avignon and London, where they were assisted by the people.
5 Porter, Med. Arch., II, 151 ff., gives the chief documents on the cart-hauling at Chartres
and St Pierre-sur-Dives, both in Latin and English. He concludes that the dominant motives
were expiatory rather than architectural. It seems likely that the clergy used the existing
popularity of pilgrimages, etc., to provide materials for building; little actual labor was ob-
tained from the mobs that were in a state of frenzied abandon at the time they were present
at the place of building. Cf. also Enlart, op. cit., I, 74 ff., on Chartres particularly, and
Ordericus Vitalis, op. cit., I, 298, on St Pierre-sur-Dives. Later in the century similar camp-
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30 Pre-Gothic Architecture
was merely the climax of tendencies that had been developing for
decades and that were widely prevalent during the eleventh century.
Not unimportant in the expanding interest of all classes in church-
building and in the spread of architectural styles, was the custom
of celebrating the completion of a church by a great dedication
service.! At important dedications, as many as fifty abbots and
twenty bishops might be present; ? the inspiration for them to rival
the edifice whose completion they were celebrating must have been
a great impetus to church-building.* Important nobles were always
present,‘ and on most occasions the chroniclers record the presence
of “‘innumerable multitudes of the faithful of both sexes and orders.”®
Such an occasion, with the vast concourse of people, the solemn pro-
cessions, the sacred relics, and all the mysticism of religion centered
in a splendid architectural setting, could not fail to make a tremen-
dous impression on all who attended, and these impressions would
be transmitted to every diocese, monastery, castle, and parish rep-
resented. How many abbeys, cathedrals, and parish churches were
built as a result of the psychological influence of dedications, can
only be left to the imagination. Through such gatherings, many of
which might occur in the same year, and which might be repeated
meeting building revivals were attempted; e.g., at Chartres after the 1194 fire; at Ardres
Monastery near Boulogne, 1164-72, where all the parishioners rallied to furnish money and
labor (Mortet, op. cit., pp. 390 ff.).
1 In 1076 basilicae plures in Normannia cum ingenti tripudio dedicatae sunt (Ordericus
Vitalis, op. cit., V, 548).
2 E.g., in 1040 at Vienne, 8 bishops, 23 abbots (Bouquet, op. cit., XI, 506); in 1047 at
Charroux, 13 bishops (ibid., XI, 218); in 1049 at Rheims, 20 bishops, 50 abbots (ibid., XI, 466,
522); in 1049 (?) at Poitiers, 300 clergy (Mortet, op. cit., p. 141).
3 Cf. above, p. 18, note 1, for examples of tearing down adequate edifices in England to
satisfy building ambitions of prelates.
4 E.g., in 1040 at Vienne, barons (Bouquet, op. cit., XI, 506); in 1056 at Coutances, nobles
(Mortet, op. cit., p. 74); in 1075 at Lille, the count and nobles (Bouquet, op. cit., XII, 272);
in 1067 at Hasnon, praesules (ibid., XI, 109 ff.); in 1077 in Normandy, optimates (ibid.,
XII, 598); Cnut and his nobles (above, p. 17, note 1).
5 E.g., in 1029 at Tours (Bouquet, op. cit.., X, 30); in 1030 at Fleury, populus (ibid., X,
112); in 1047, at Charroux, omnium ordinum multitudines Christianorum (ibid., XI, 218);
in 1049 at Rheims, uillani oppidani ciues innumerosa concio (ibid., XI, 466, 522); in 1077 in
Normandy, ingenti frequentia populorum multitudo populorum (ibid., XII, 589); in 1095 and
annually thereafter, at Maguelone, populus (ibid., XII, 371); in 1095 at Angers, populus, and
indulgences (ibid., XII, 491); in 1114 at Laon, 200,000 people (Herimannus, Mirac., iii, 2;
Migne, CLVI, 918 ff.); 1120 at Prémontré, crowds (Norbert, Vita, c. 12; M. G. H., XII, 669).
*
A
s
Pre-Gothic Architecture 31
annually as commemorative festivals,’ the contagion of group ac-
tivity must have penetrated the lives of the people.
Because of the lack of definite data, one of the most important
aspects of building activity, that of the innumerable parish churches,
must be left relatively untouched. The assistance once given by the
rural populace in erecting a great monument to the ambition of a
spiritual or temporal noble, must have been given repeatedly and
much more whole-heartedly to the work of repairing or constructing
their own parish chapels. But, unlike the monastic and secular
clergy of the eleventh century, and unlike the twelfth-century com-
munes, the rural parish had no chronicler; it left no record save its
church ruins.?
The increase in church-building in the eleventh century, as illus-
trated in the preceding pages, is indicative of the universal and
rapid emergence of that group-conscious mediaeval spirit that has
left its noblest record in the great Romanesque and Gothic cathe-
drals. New methods, new styles, and new classes of participants in
the work mirror the new social habits of people who were entering
upon larger group activities. Mass processions and dedications
tended to unite royalty, nobles, clergy, and the populace, at least
temporarily, in a common responsiveness to religious emotionalism.
In the Middle Ages, the building of a church was, infinitely more
than in our present age, an integral part of the life of the commu-
nity; for the whole people was a unit inspired collectively by the
needs of the Church. In our own day, drives such as the Liberty
Loan campaigns of the World War, based on appeals to the pa-
triotic emotions of the masses, are much more like the mediaeval
building programs, in that they show the latent group emotionalism
so often unnoticed in routine life and unrecorded by annalists. From
1 Above, p. 30, note 1 (many dedications in Normandy in 1076), note 5 (repeated annually
at Maguelone).
2 P. Imbart de la Tour, Les Origines Religieuses de la France; les Paroisses Rurales du IVe
au Xe Siécle (Paris, 1900), pp. 165 ff., gives a few scattered records: e.g., ecclesias quas con-
struxerunt .. . fabrili construentes arte, in 821, and ecclesiolam paruulam ex luto et lapidibus
confectam in 823, and quotes Hincmar of Rheims’ accounts of the restoration or construction
of chapels, oratories, etc. Cf. above p. 16, note 6; p. 17, note 1; p. 19; p. 21, note 1; p. 25,
note 3, on parish churches.
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32 Pre-Gothic Architecture
this standpoint, eleventh-century social psychology is, in many re-
spects, akin to that of our own times.
The study of mediaeval group-consciousness in church-building
may open up many vistas to the historian of social evolution. In
every phase of eleventh-century religious life one may look, and not
in vain, for traces of the instinct of codperative community effort as
it worked toward the levelling of class barriers and the fusing of men
into a broader Christian brotherhood and a more workable social
organism. From Fulk the Black’s thinly veiled selfishness to Saint
Bernard’s other-worldliness, from kings to rural parishioners, from
church-building revivals to crusading outbursts, one finds the same
spirit; and over it all there hovers like incense the mystical sacra-
mentalism and intense devotion of the mediaeval religious mind.
State UNIvERsITY.
f
"
KING ARTHUR AND POLITICS
By GORDON HALL GEROULD
HERE is nothing new in the statement that Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth was inspired to write his great Historia Regum Britanniae
by other considerations than a passion for historical truth; nor is
there any doubt in the minds of scholars that it was owing to the
influence of this book, direct and indirect, that the Arthurian stories
leapt into general literary popularity just at this time.’ In all the writ-
ing about these matters, however, I cannot find that anyone has
ever suggested a line of inquiry that seems to me very helpful to
an understanding of why and how the Arthurian romances came
into being.
There has been a great deal of discussion, some of it fruitful and
some of it barren, about the genetics of these works, as well as a
considerable amount of sheer quarrelling about the relative contri-
butions of Wales and Armorica to the stories upon which they were
based; but there has been too little effort to study their origins in
relationship to other phenomena, literary, political, and religious, of
the twelfth century. Yet it should be evident to all of us that the
sudden development of Arthurian romance must have come about
through ideas and impulses more or less consciously operative in
people of the time. Scholars have too often treated this sudden
florescence of romance as if it were a true and not a metaphorical
flowering: something botanical, uncontrolled by human action,
which is to lose sight of the plain fact that neither spurious history
nor acknowledged fiction comes into being of itself.
Of course we do know that stories about Arthur and at least
some of his followers had long been told by the Celts. There is the
reference in Nennius, which takes us back to the seventh century;
there is the entry in the tenth-century Annales Cambriae, which
mentions the battle between Arthur and Mordred; there are the
monks of Laon, who found in 1113 that people in Cornwall believed
1 J. D. Bruce, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance (1923), I, 20.
33
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34 King Arthur and Politics
Arthur to be alive, just as did the Bretons; and there is the allusion
to Arthur from about the same time in the life of the Cornish Saint
Carantoc. ' William of Malmesbury, writing in 1125, was cognizant
of these tales, but condemned them as unworthy of the real Arthur,
whom “non fallaces somniarent fabulae, sed veraces praedicarent his-
toriae.” ? According to William. these were mere Britonum nugae,
although he recorded in another passage * the discovery of Gawain’s
tomb in Wales, explaining that it was the ignorance about Arthur’s
burial place which had given rise to the “popular songs” prophesying
his return. William’s account of the Saxon conquest is a sober one,
depending upon Nennius and Bede. It is noteworthy that Henry
of Huntingdon, who wrote his Historia Anglorum‘ before 1133,
added nothing to the account of Arthur found in Nennius, though
he arranged the material otherwise than William. Gifted as he was
with more imagination than critical sense, capable for instance of
describing battles of the Arthurian period with invented detail,
Henry nevertheless dealt with Arthur himself in a single chapter,
lacking, it would appear, any impulse to enlarge upon the theme.
The ways of folk legend, if not past finding out, are undeniably
dark; and we shall probably never know with any degree of certainty
the extent and precise character of the naeniae to which William
of Malmesbury referred. The phenomenon we are now considering
is this: after Geoffrey of Monmouth published his astounding His-
toria, there followed, though not so immediately as we sometimes
rather carelessly think, a succession of writers who made Arthur,
before the twelfth century had run its course, the great king of
romance which he has remained from that day to this. Geoffrey
issued his history, we are fortunate in being able to say with pre-
cision, between 1136 and 1138.°
1 For a convenient summary of these references, see Bruce, op. cit., I, 6, 12.
2 De Gestis Regum, i, 8, ed. Stubbs, 1887, Rolls Ser. XC, 1, 11-12.
3 iii, 287, Stubbs, IT, 342. 4 Ed. T. Arnold, 1879 (Rolls Ser. LXXIV).
5 See Sir F. Madden, The Archaeological Journal, XV (1858), 299-312; A. Leitzmann,
Arch. f.d. Stud. d. neueren Sprachen, CXXXIV (1916), 373-75, and Bruce, op. cit., I, 18, note.
Of even greater importance is Acton Griscom, “The Date of Composition of Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s Historia,” Speculum, I (1926), 129-156, which embodies the results of the first
systematic examination of MSS ever made. It is regrettable that one cannot accept as any-
thing better than an interesting possibility Mr Griscom’s suggestion that the Historia was
completed by the spring of 1136.
€
4
King Arthur and Politics 35
Several questions at once come to mind with reference to Geoffrey,
only two of which concern us at present, since the very natural and
important one about his sources has been admirably studied by the
late Professor Fletcher and by many other scholars,' while we may
now hope for new light from Mr Acton Griscom. Quite as important
as any other matters, however, are the questions of the extent to
which Geoffrey’s work differed in emphasis from previous chronicles,
and of plausible reasons for his becoming the father of Arthurian
romance. Was his history, in the first place, so new a departure?
In the second place, what led him to give Arthur so important a
place? If we could answer these questions — and I can pretend to
do no more than make certain suggestions as to the second — we
should come to a better understanding of the Arthurian florescence
in the second half of the twelfth century.
The first question, happily, is not a difficult one. We need only
compare the outline of Geoffrey’s book with those of his immediate
predecessors to see that even his ostensible purpose was different
from theirs. William of Malmesbury called his book Deeds of the
English Kings, Henry of Huntingdon entitled his a History of the
English, but Geoffrey wrote a History of the Kings of Britain, which
at once limited his scope in one sense and enlarged it in another.
William, a sober and sophisticated historian, and an honest one
as modern research has proved,’ divided his history into five books.
The first ran from the conquest of Britain by Julius Caesar to the
reign of Egbert; the second went on from Egbert to the Norman
Conquest; the third dealt with the reign of William I; the fourth
had to do with English and Continental affairs during the time of
William Rufus; and the fifth concerned itself with the days of
Henry I. To Arthur he devoted part of one chapter in Book i,
giving him as much space as the sources available warranted — and
? R. H. Fletcher, Arthurian Materials in the Chronicles, (Harv.] Studies and Notes in
Philol. and Lit., Vol. X (1906), remains the most important landmark. See Bruce, op. cit.,
I, 20-23, for a review of investigations in this field.
* The crucial test is his little work On the Antiquity of Glastonbury, which W. W. Newell
stripped of its later accretions (Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn., XVIII, 1903, 459-511) as did Dean
J. Armitage Robinson even more clearly (Somerset Historical Essays, London: H. Milford,
1921, pp. 1-25). It is unfortunate that Dean Robinson failed to read the earlier monograph
and give due credit to it.
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36 King Arthur and Politics
no more. Whatever fault may be found with William’s judgment in
dealing with this detail or that, there can be no question that he
had both a sense of proportion and a sense of fact. He was, in short,
a worthy example of twelfth-century scholarship, and he wrote
after the best manner of his. kind.
When we turn from him to Henry of Huntingdon’s History of the
English, we find ourselves in a different atmosphere. His first edition
was divided into seven books, only two of which were concerned
with the Norman Conquest and later events. He began with a de-
scription of Britain and took over from Nennius the Trojan founda-
tion, but devoted most of the first book to the Romans. The second
book described the Saxon conquest, and therefore included Arthur,
but only in a single chapter — like William. His third book was an
account of the conversion of the English and Scots; the fourth of
English history down to the death of Egbert; and the fifth chiefly
of the Danish wars. There is nothing wrong with his outline, there-
fore, but every evidence of carelessness in the treatment of events.
Compared with William of Malmesbury, Henry was a very incom-
petent person, who thought to make up for general dullness by pas-
sages of flashy rhetoric and who was obviously incapable of the criti-
cal effort of his predecessor. Yet Henry, though without distinction
of manner or close veracity of substance, was writing a survey of
English history down to his own day and was not tempted to indulge
his imagination except in details. What he might have done, had
Geoffrey furnished him with the materials, his famous letter to
Warinus, written in 1139, shows only too well.
Yet Geoffrey of Monmouth had an entirely different purpose,
according to his own statement, and therefore a different scope.
He had wondered much, he says, even before getting his “very
ancient book” from Walter of Oxford, why Gildas and Bede had
failed to tell of the kings who ruled Britain in the pre-Christian era,
and failed also to tell of others, like Arthur, who lived in succeeding
centuries. It is significant that, according to his own avowal, he
had thus “‘wondered.”’ Walter’s book, of course, enabled him to
supply the lack; and nothing was ever more lordly than his epi-
logue, in which he grants to William of Malmesbury and Henry of
|
=
King Arthur and Politics 37
Huntingdon their Saxon kings but enjoins silence about the kings
of the Britons, since they do not possess the book that Walter brought
from Wales."
His theme was therefore the glory and the decadence of Roman
and Celtic Britain, and with this theme the entire twelve books into
which he divided his work are concerned. So fully was he informed
that he does not reach the invasion by Julius Caesar until Book iv,
although William of Malmesbury began with this event and Henry
of Huntingdon came to it early in the first of seven books. That
Geoffrey included in this section of his narrative various stories that
have enriched later literature is beside the point of the present dis-
cussion. After two books devoted to the Romans, he arrives at the
Pictish invasions, and so at his Arthurian material, which extends
past the beginning of Book xi, while the remainder of that book and
the twelfth are given up to Arthur’s successors down to Ivor and
Iny, who were kings of Wales only and ended the day of British
supremacy.
Thus, although Arthur’s actual reign occupies only slightly more
than two books, more than half of the entire work is devoted to
persons connected with his story. No wonder that Geoffrey remarked
of Arthur in his Prophecies of Merlin, which constitute the seventh
book: “‘et actus ejus cibus erit narrantibus.”* As Fletcher so well
said, “‘in his History Geoffrey did nothing less than to create the his-
torical romance of Arthur for the mediaeval world”’;* and his work
as a whole is nothing less than the romance of Celtic Britain. In
the matter he presented he was no rival of William of Malmesbury
and Henry of Huntingdon, for he pretended to be the historian not
of the dominant races in the island but of the subdued and back-
ward-driven Celts.
Why — we come now to the second and difficult question pro-
pounded above — should an aspiring scholar have thought it worth
his while to gather the scattered materials he used, and stretch his
imagination as he stretched it, to write a history of Celtic Britain?
1 If ex Britannia can bear this meaning, as I believe. It seems to me that chapters 17
and 18 of Geoffrey’s Book xii, coming as they do just before the passage cited, make his
usage plain.
2 Ed. San Marte, p. 93. 3 Op. cit., p. 56.
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38 King Arthur and Politics
The suggestion proffered at the end of the twelfth century by
William of Newburgh that Geoffrey and others who made up stories
about Arthur did so either from an inordinate love of lying or for the
sake of pleasing the Britons ' is clearly inadequate, even though the
famous story by Giraldus Cambrensis? that the devils who were
routed by the Gospel of John returned when Geoffrey’s History was
substituted, shows the same tendency of critical persons to look
upon him with distrust. The explanation will not do, because no
one has ever lied at such length and at such pains simply for the
sake of lying, while it is unreasonable to suppose that Geoffrey had
any special wish to placate the Welsh themselves. The Welsh of
that day did not furnish prime ministers to England, with deaneries
and bishoprics in their gift. That Geoffrey was an ardent patriot
has been more than once suggested, but it does not seem probable
on any score.
In the first place, there is no evidence, despite the Britonum
nugae mentioned by William of Malmesbury, that a coherent legen-
dary sequence about Arthur existed until Geoffrey created it. In-
deed, the way he played upon passages from Nennius and Bede,
using them as so many spring-boards for his airy flights, indicates
pretty clearly his lack of any source that he could follow straight
on. Moreover, there can scarcely have been a ‘Celtic movement’ to
inspire him. In the second place, he was connected throughout his
career with the Normans and English, and certainly wrote for them.
Be it noted that he dedicated his Prophecies of Merlin to the great
Alexander of Lincoln and his History — exclusively in its final form
— to the still greater Robert, Earl of Gloucester, although he did
not achieve a bishopric (or take full orders as a priest) until 1152.
In addressing these men, he was unquestionably putting himself
under the patronage of the two persons in high place most likely to
appreciate literary efforts and to reward them.
Robert of Gloucester, as the one surviving son of Henry I, was
a power in England not only before his father’s death but still more
1 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, Proemium, ed. Howlett, Chronicles of Stephen (Rolls Ser.
LXXXII, 1, 14). I quote the translation by Fletcher, op. cit., p. 102.
2 Itin. Cambria, i, 5, ed. J. F. Dimock (Rolls Ser. XXI, p. 58).
|
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King Arthur and Politics 39
during the reign of Stephen, when he became the chief stay of his
half-sister, the Empress Matilda, and of her son, Henry of Anjou.
Between 1136 and 1138, however, the date of Geoffrey’s History, he
was at peace with Stephen, having sworn a conditional oath of fealty
in the former year, which he renounced in the latter.! Although
illegitimate, he had received great honors and wealth from Henry I,
and gained much through his marriage. Indeed, he was like a vassal
king in the western counties and the Welsh marches, and he was
withal accounted a man of learning — Beauclerc like his father. To
him William of Malmesbury addressed his Gesta Regum in 1125 and
later his Historia Novella. If he could never quite hope to be king,
he was certainly a good person to have for friend. It is perhaps not
without significance that Geoffrey in his dedication referred to him
as if another Henry.
Alexander of Blois, too, who became Bishop of Lincoln in 1123,
was a great personage in his day. William of Malmesbury says in
downright fashion: There were then two most powerful bishops in
England, Roger of Salisbury and his brother’s son, Alexander of Lin-
coln.?, Roger was justiciar of England and in Stephen’s reign papal
legate, but he was scarcely more magnificent than his nephew, a
worldly Norman prelate more concerned with politics than with the
practice of religion perhaps, but a patron of letters withal. Henry
of Huntingdon, who — about 1133 — dedicated to him his History,
says that he wrote the work at the bishop’s command, which may
very well be true. Alexander was considered a learned man, even
though it was probably flattery on Geoffrey’s part to say that he
would have sung “prae ceteris audaci lyra”* if he had not been
called to higher things.
My point in citing these magnates of state and church is not
merely to show that Geoffrey of Monmouth was ambitious, which is
sufficiently evident from what we know of his career as a whole,‘ nor
1 William of Malmesbury, Historia Novella, i, ed. Stubbs, IT, 541 and 545.
2 Hist. Novella, ii, ed. Stubbs, I, 547.
3 vii, 2, ed. San Marte, p. 92.
‘ It is certainly significant that he never visited his remote bishopric of St Asaph’s,
though appointed to it two years before his death.
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40 King Arthur and Politics
that he was aware of the chief fountain-heads of honor in his time.
The point is rather, it seems to me, that he should have hoped to
interest the prince of the royal house and the great prelate in the
romance of British history, and that, judged by the later fame of
the book, he should have been so successful in doing this. It might
be argued, to be sure, that Earl Robert, as lord of the West, would
have liked to know the past of his Welsh neighbors; but it could
hardly have been expected that he would welcome a glorification
of their kings. It could not have been expected, that is, unless there
were reasons other than propinquity to account for it.
To understand the situation as I see it, one must view both sides
of the Channel at once and notice certain parallels in the history of
the Capetian and Norman dynasties, which can scarcely be fortui-
tous and which throw a very interesting light on literary as well as
political events of the twelfth century.
Hugh Capet dispossessed the last of the feeble Carlovingians in
987, and in that same year had his son Robert II (the Pious) crowned
and anointed, the double rite having been instituted in 816 for Louis
the Pious, the son of Charlemagne. As Professor Marc Bloch has
shown in his wholly admirable work, Les rois thaumaturges,' it was
quite possibly Robert II, who reigned from 996 until 1031, who
first “touched” for scrofula. Certainly his grandson Philip I (1060-
1108) exercised this regal and dynastic gift, and by the time of
Louis VI (1108-1137) the custom was firmly established in tradition.
M. Bloch pertinently remarks ? that one has difficulty in believing
that this crystallization of thaumaturgic power took place with no
thought of its political bearing on a dynasty still far from sure of its
position. It must be remembered, furthermore, that the French
kings considered themselves successors of Clovis, in connection with
whose baptism, according to a legend first recorded by Hincmar of
Rheims in the ninth century, the Sainte Ampoule was divinely
provided. This phial containing celestial balm was preserved in the
Abbey of Saint-Rémi, and was produced at the consecration of all
1 Publications de la Faculté des Lettres de V Université de Strasbourg, Fasc. 19, 1924, pp.
29-41.
2 Idem, p. 81.
}
4
King Arthur and Politics 41
kings of France, who thus had a sanction to which English kings
could not aspire until a far later date.!
By the end of the eleventh century, the house of Capet was thus
buttressed by a set of beliefs and practices that were of inestimable
advantage to monarchs surrounded by hostile rivals and ambitious
vassals. The Capetians might lack the energy and sagacity of the
house of Anjou, for example, but they were more highly favored of
Heaven than any other sovereigns in Europe; and in the long run
they gained solid power from such imponderables as miraculous
unction and the gift of healing. Robert II, Henry I, and Philip I
were not great kings, as the world counts success, but they managed
to attain, or their counsellors attained for them, a unique position.
It may be surmised that the final emergence of France, as France,
from the welter of struggling dukedoms was due, in a far higher de-
gree than historians have been accustomed to tell us, to the factors
here mentioned. Feeling is, after all, one of the great realities of
politics in any age.
Since the Capetian dynasty regarded itself, and was regarded, as
carrying on the succession of Merovingian and Carlovingian rulers,
it benefited also, without much doubt, from the extraordinary and
complicated growth of the chansons de geste in the second half of the
eleventh century. Whatever may be thought of Professor Bédier’s
conclusions as to the making of the French Epics,’ it is scarcely dis-
putable that he has shown them to be a product — and what we
may justly term a literary product — of the eleventh century, and
of no earlier date. Their development thus synchronized with the
accession of sanctity attained by the Capets. It would be absurd to
argue, of course, that the royal line of France fostered the growth of
the Charlemagne legend in order to strengthen its own position; for
that would attribute to those monarchs a machiaevellian shrewdness
certainly not theirs, and it would have been impossible geographi-
cally besides. It is almost certain, however, that they profited from
the popular fame into which the great emperor emerged. How
1 See Bloch, pp. 224-229, for the French legend, and pp. 238-242, for the English imitation.
Henry IV, be it noted, was the first king to use the sacred oil in England: Henry IV, whose
rights were far from clear.
2 J. Bédier, Les légendes épiques, 4 vols., 2d ed., 1914-21.
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42 King Arthur and Politics
could have it been otherwise, since they traced their sacred descent
far back of his time to Clovis himself? Feeble though they were, the
divine sanction was there, and it must have come to the minds of
men as they listened to the tales of the heroes who surrounded Char-
lemagne. Bédier’s suggestion ' that the very insignificance of such
kings as Robert II, Henry I, and Philip I recalled the glories of
Charlemagne by contrast, and was partly responsible for the develop-
ment of the chansons de geste, may possibly be right; but it seems to
me more probable, in view of Capetian success during the same
period in asserting a distinctive claim to sovereignty, that the ro-
mantic tales merely strengthened — even if fortuitously — a growing
sentiment of nationality, which looked to the kings of France for
titular leadership.
Across the Channel, a Duke of Normandy seized the English
throne in 1066, when Philip of France was still at the beginning of
his long reign. Duke William won and held his kingdom by right of
conquest; but he took pains, as everyone knows, to make it appear
that he and not Harold was the legitimate ruler of the land and the
proper heir of Edward the Confessor. He was wise enough to see
that only by a process of adaptation and amalgamation could his
successors and the Norman nobles keep what they had won. The
results of his policy are descernible even in the reign of his not very
wise or successful eldest son, when in the wars of Rufus and Robert
the change of feeling shows itself in the altered use of names; the appel-
lations ‘Norman’ and ‘French’ are reserved exclusively for the duke
and his allies, and the supporters of the king of England are all counted
together indiscriminately as English.2 Henry I, who was an astute if
not a brilliant monarch, married a granddaughter of Edward the
Confessor, thus linking his house more firmly with the old line of
Saxon kings. Their son William, born in 1103, seemed destined to
settle for all time any question of Norman rights to the throne of
England. But William perished when the White Ship went down in
1120, and by his death made perhaps inevitable the struggle between
Stephen of Blois and the Empress Matilda that followed 1135.
1 Op. cit., IV, 454.
2 K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings (London and New York, 1887), I, 24.
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King Arthur and Politics 43
Henry Beauclerc, as M. Bloch has shown,’ probably touched for
the evil, although the evidence for it is an indirect reference by
William of Malmesbury,’ who was concerned at the moment with
Edward the Confessor rather than his own king. M. Bloch’s infer-
ence that Henry I began the practice in England is strengthened,
however, by the quite unequivocal testimony of Peter of Blois * as
to its customary and conventionalized use by Henry II. It would
be extremely interesting to know, although we are unlikely ever to
discover, whether Henry Beauclerc assumed the power in the life-
time of Prince William, or only when his hope of leaving his crown
to a son who united the English and Norman dynasties was so
violently shattered. In any case, it would have been very natural
for Henry to take up the practice, very easy for him to believe in the
thaumaturgic efficacy of his touch, for he must have regarded him-
self as quite as good a king as his feudal lord and rival, Louis VI of
France.
We know — again through the researches of M. Bloch — that
Henry Beauclere was not averse from taking advantage of his con-
nection with the English house.‘ Instead of acknowledging his imi-
tation of the Capetians in the matter of healing, he — or the monks
of Westminster for him — developed a suitable legend with regard
to Edward the Confessor, according to which the Saxon king
“touched” successfully by virtue of his royalty. William of Malmes-
bury’s otherwise somewhat equivocal reference makes it abun-
dantly clear that in 1124 the belief was current —a falsity, William
thought — that Edward’s healing power came non ex sanctitate, sed
ex regalis prosapiae hereditate. Henry undoubtedly profited by this
belief, as he did by the rise of the cult of St Edward which accom-
panied it.
The story of this development, indeed, is an interesting one, and
pertinent to our inquiry. Edward, who died at the opening of the
year 1066, had acquired no reputation for sanctity during his life-
time, nor do references that immediately followed his death indicate
1 Op. cit., pp. 41-49. 2 De Gestis Regum, ed. Stubbs, I, 273.
3 Migne, Patr. Lat., CCVII, col. 440.
4 Bloch, op. cit., pp. 47-49, 82-84; and, more particularly, “‘La vie de S. Edouard le Con-
fesseur par Osbert de Clare,” Analecta Bollandiana, XLI (1923), 17-44.
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44 King Arthur and Politics
that he was regarded as a person of distinguished holiness. The
tendency to elevate him to sainthood must have begun ere long,
however, since two writs from the time of Abbot Gilbert Crispin,
who ruled Westminster between 1085 (or thereabouts) and 1117,
state that refugees sought sanctuary at “‘the altar of St Peter and the
body of King Edward.” ! The movement, quite possibly begun by
popular veneration, was equally useful to the abbey and to the
Norman kings, who from the first had virtually adopted Edward as
their own and in the person of Henry I had allied themselves with
his blood. How cleverly the monks fostered the cult is shown by a
prophecy attributed to the Confessor, which is found in an anony-
mous Vita * written between 1093 and 1120 and referred to by Wil-
liam of Malmesbury towards 1125.* This prophecy clearly indi-
cated young William, the son of Henry, as destined to heal the land
of its ills, he being a bough reunited to the ancestral stock.
Although the busy propagandist who invented the prophecy
was doomed to disappointment in the early death of the prince, he
and his fellow-workers succeeded in attaching to the Norman house
the legend of a saint in the making. Osbert of Clare, in 1138, could
write a life of Edward that showed him ready for canonization, and
doubtless could write it in all sincerity, although it was not till
1161, when a more politic king than Stephen was on the throne,
that the Saxon monarch was finally made a saint. For Ailred of
Rievaulx, who in 1160 wrote the official Vita, St Edward’s prophetic
vision was adequately fulfilled in the fusion of races that had taken
place.
The Norman dynasty had thus acquired before the end of Henry
Beauclere’s reign not only power, but most of the trappings of
power so valuable by way of inspiring respect. It had not, to be
sure, the royal balm descended from Clovis, which gave the French
kings a special sanction; but it had coronations and anointings, and
it had established relations with a member of a former dynasty whose
repute for sanctity was growing and was certain to lead to canoniza-
1 J. Armitage Robinson, Gilbert Crispin (Cambridge: University Press, 1911), p. $7.
2 Ed. Luard, Lives of Edward the Confessor, 1858, pp. 430-31 (Rolls Ser. III). For the
date, see Bloch’s masterly discussion, op. cit., pp. 17-44.
3 De Gestis Regum, v., ed. Stubbs, II, 495.
|
King Arthur and Politics 45
tion in due time. Perhaps, after all, it was quite as satisfactory to
lean for support on the divine favor accorded to the grandfather of
a living queen as on someone so remote as Clovis. Furthermore, the
Norman line gave proof of its legitimacy by its thaumaturgic gift:
Henry by a touch of his hand could heal the evil as well as Louis,
and must therefore be an equally sacred king.
In one essential respect only was the English dynasty less well
provided than the French with the pomp and circumstance of roy-
alty. There was not in the background any figure of heroic size such
as Charlemagne had come to be in the imagination of the eleventh
century. The Capetians could not lay claim to descent from the
mighty emperor, but the legitimacy of their succession from him
was attested by the sacred gifts they possessed. England had no
such world-conqueror to boast; and a dynasty become English in
sentiment, if not in manners and speech, could not well encourage
its supporters to chant a Song of Roland as a Norman duke could
afford to do in 1066. There were plenty of Anglo-Saxon royal saints,
to be sure, who were not neglected in the new era,! but nowhere in
English history was there a universal glory like Charlemagne.
It is Geoffrey of Monmouth’s one clear title to genius, I believe,
that he saw the situation as it was: that only from British history
could the want be supplied. He well deserved all the fame he won
in his own day, and all the fame that has been his ever since — in
spite of detractors — if only for the moment of inspiration when he
conceived the notion of his “librum vetustissimum, qui a Bruto primo
rege Britonum usque ad Cadwaladrum filium Cadwalonis, actus omnium
continue et ex ordine perpulcris orationibus proponebat.” ? Indeed, he
deserved a much greater reward than was his in his own lifetime,
since what he accomplished by his pen was something of inestim-
able advantage to his country — something worth infinitely more
than the inconspicuous bishopric of St Asaph’s.
Some strokes of political genius, however, and most literary in-
spirations can scarcely be paid for in worldly honors, the more so
that frequently their importance is not understood at the time.
1 See Gerould, Saints’ Legends (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916), pp. 182-136,
140-142. 2 Historia Regum, i, 1, ed. San Marte, p. 3.
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46 King Arthur and Politics
Of necessity, it seems to me, Geoffrey had to veil himself behind
his “very old book” and Walter of Oxford, who was erudite “in
exoticis historiis.” There is no sense in regarding Geoffrey as a
vulgar forger or a humorist. He could not well pose as the dis-
coverer of hidden things; he must appear merely as the disseminator
of information that ought to be common knowledge. Yet it is more
than possible that he won less personal reputation by his book be-
cause he wrote himself down simply as translator and compiler.
It has never been suggested, I believe, but it is a point to consider
in connection with Geoffrey’s intentions that his seventh book, the
Prophecies of Merlin, so curiously rivals and outdoes the single
prophecy attributed to Edward the Confessor, discussed above.
This seventh book, perhaps in a longer form, appears to have been
issued as a separate work before the publication of the History.!
It was dedicated, as we have seen, to Alexander of Lincoln. Now,
Professor Rupert Taylor in his very useful monograph, The Political
Prophecy in England,? has shown it to be a peculiarity of Geoffrey
that he used animals and trees as prophetic symbols, which con-
nects his work with later Welsh poems in which the same device is
found. We have noted that the Edwardian prophecy employs a tree
with its branches to hide its meaning; noted, too, that by 1120 the
prophecy was famous.’ Geoffrey could perfectly well have received
the inspiration for his /ibellus from this source, carrying out the
idea with the thoroughness so characteristic of him. In saying this,
I do not imply, however, that he may not have obtained material for
some of his prophecies from Welsh or Breton sources, but merely the
probability that he was stimulated by the success of the earlier
vision.‘
1 The evidence rests on Geoffrey’s own statement and on the quotations made by Order-
icus Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, xii, 47, ed. LePrévost, IV, 486-492.
2 New York: Columbia University Press, 1911, pp. 45-47.
3 Professor Taylor’s slighting reference to the Vision of Edward, p. 8, is not strange, since
its importance had not been demonstrated at the time he wrote.
4 In view of Geoffrey’s reference to his shepherd’s pipe (fistula), his rustic pipe (agrestis
calamus), as well as to his folk melody (plebeio modulamine), in the epistle which he sent,
according to his own statement, with the Prophecies of Merlin to Bishop Alexander, it seems
evident that he could not have had in mind simply the prose prophesies as they are found in
Book vii of the Historia. He says of Alexander, furthermore: gui prae ceteris audaci lyra
caneres. What does all this mean? It has never been explained.
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King Arthur and Politics 47
In many ways, though the idea and its execution were so ad-
mirably adapted for success, the date of publication of Geoffrey’s
Historia was a bad one. As I have already said, we know that the
book must have been given to the world between 1136 and 1138.
Stephen of Blois had made his coup d’état after Henry’s death at the
end of 1135, and in the following spring Robert of Gloucester had
given his conditional oath of fealty; but no thoughtful person could
have failed to have misgivings about the new reign. Hope there must
have been, nevertheless, that Stephen — impulsive and likable —
would keep his oath to follow out the policies of his late uncle.
Actuated by some such hope, no doubt, Geoffrey, who had just ded-
icated his book to the Earls of Gloucester and Mellent, changed
the dedication to exclude the latter, putting the new king in first
place. One extant manuscript’ thus links Stephen and Robert. It
is not inconceivable that the ambitious author may have believed
the time propitious to launch a history designed at once to put such
fellows as William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon in
their place,’ to flatter the followers of Earl Robert who had Celtic
blood, and to show to all the world that young King Stephen had
predecessors as glorious as any of whom King Louis could boast.
There was Arthur, his whole life now made clear to anyone who
could read Latin — Arthur, before whom the kings of the Continent
bowed down either in fealty or fear — Arthur, who worsted even the
Emperor of Rome. Charlemagne was no greater, and he was much
less ancient.
Unfortunately Stephen did not keep the peace with Gloucester,
but in the summer of 1138 seized his castles and plunged the country
1 Codex 568, Staatsbibliothek, Bern. The description by Acton Griscom, op. cit., super-
sedes all previous accounts. Mr Griscom’s argument that Geoffrey’s double dedication to
Robert of Gloucester and Waleran, Ear] of Mellent, preceded that to Stephen and Robert
seems to me as sound as it is brilliant. I take the more pleasure in saying this, since I cannot
accept as proved his attempt to give a precise date for the double dedications. Similarly,
Mr Griscom’s “The Book of Basingwerk and MS. Cotton Cleopatra B. V,” Y Cymmrodor
XXXV (1925), 49-116, XXXVI (1926), 1-33, has the great value of showing quite conclu-
sively the need for proper texts and textual studies of the Welsh chronicles posterior to Geof-
frey, even though the arguments for the existence of Walter’s book seem to me negligible.
? It is interesting that this gibe is not found in one Cambridge MS., as Mr Griscom shows,
Speculum, I (1926), 137, but it does not affect my argument.
Be
_
3
48 King Arthur and Politics
into a devastating civil war. It must have seemed to everyone then
that Geoffrey had hit upon a very inauspicious time to celebrate the
splendors of the past, unless indeed as consolation for the sorry
present.
Some immediate success the Historia must have had, or so we
are led to believe by the twin double dedications. We know from the
case of Osbert of Clare, who presented his Vita of Edward the Con-
fessor to the new papal legate in 1138, and took it to Rome, together
with other documents, presumably in the following year,' that what
we nowadays call propaganda did not cease when Stephen quar-
relled with Robert of Gloucester. It is perhaps significant, however,
that except for Gaimar no writer in the vernacular literature shows
the influence of Geoffrey until the end of Stephen’s reign. The
flowering of romance, as I have already hinted, did not come at
once. It was delayed for some two decades, and began almost im-
mediately after Henry II came to the throne.’ One is led to believe
that the advent of Henry Plantagenet, with a court acknowledged
to be one of the most brilliant in Europe, brought Geoffrey’s work
into prominence and gave rise to the romances that drew upon it
for material.
What can be said safely is this: the coincidence in the cultivation
of various means calculated to increase the prestige of the Norman
dynasty, so curiously paralleling similar movements in France,
shows that Geoffrey’s History was even more important than it
has hitherto been considered. The researches of many scholars have
demonstrated that stories about Arthur were circulating both in
Wales and in Brittany when Geoffrey wrote.’ They have not
shown, however, that the “popular songs” mentioned by William
of Malmesbury were coherent, well-organized tales. Since investi-
gation has proved that Geoffrey, while using Nennius and Bede
extensively, while adapting themes from the Old Testament and
certainly picking up much from current tradition, invented and em-
broidered with the utmost freedom, we are forced to the conclusion
1 See Bloch, op. cit., pp. 13-14.
2 Wace’s Brut, 1155, and Thomas’s Tristan, 1155-70, are, by common agreement, among
the earliest.
3 About the evidence from the reliefs in Lombardy, there is still the gravest doubt.
a
4
King Arthur and Politics 49
that without him there might never have been any Arthurian ro-
mances at all.
Geoffrey formed Arthur in the image of Charlemagne — for very
good and sufficient reasons, as I have tried to show. Whether or
not he was wholly conscious of these reasons matters little, though
I cannot help believing that he was. His was the notion of Arthur,
I need scarcely say, that persisted in all the romances except a few
late ones of English derivation. If Arthur became the centre for the
exploits of the knights of the Round Table, but himself took small
part in them, it was because his position had been fixed by Geoffrey
as a world-conqueror: he was too lofty a person to be involved in
adventures by the way. M. Bédier has pointed out that Charle-
magne, in the same fashion, was almost never given the centre of the
stage in the chansons de geste. 1t is not without significance that
Geoffrey listed the Twelve Peers of France among Arthur’s lords."
If the views I have been presenting have validity, it follows that
the question as to the Welsh versus Armorican derivation of the
material used by Geoffrey, and by the romancers after him, has less
importance than has been assumed. If, that is to say, the genre of
Arthurian romance be conceived not as a self-directed and sponta-
neous growth, but as a kind of fiction cultivated by story-tellers
perfectly conscious of what they were doing, there is no reason why
the story-tellers should not have derived suggestions from the folk-
lore of both Brittany and Wales, at the same time adapting and
inventing without scruple. The sanctity of popular tradition is a
fetish of modern scholarship: it was no affair of mediaeval writers.
That material was readily accessible from Cornwall, as well as
Wales and Brittany, scarcely needed demonstration, though it has
been sufficiently proved many times over. Under the conditions
that existed, there was no strict line of separation between Celtic
and non-Celtic populations. Did not the monks of Laon visit Corn-
wall as well as Devon in 1113? Did not Henry I plant a colony of
Flemish folk in the heart of Wales?? Was not Brittany allied now
with Anjou and now with Normandy; and did not Breton troops
1 ix, 12, ed. San Marte, pp. 132-3.
2 William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Regum, v, ed. Stubbs, II, 477.
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ave 2
in
not
am
ede
and
sion
mong
50 King Arthur and Politics
serve under William the Conqueror? It is not unlikely that Geoffrey
of Monmouth himself had Breton blood, though born in Wales.!
Such waifs and strays of tradition as would serve the turn of ro-
mancers were to be had from every side; and it is quite apparent
that writers were not too particular about the genuinely Celtic
provenience of everything that went into a Breton lay or an Arthur-
ian romance.
Should anyone inquire how it happened that a set of stories de-
veloped in England to enhance the glory of English kings and
minister to the pride of nobles who had learned to call themselves
English, to serve withal as a balance against the tales of Charle-
magne, came to be woven into romances chiefly at the rival court
of France, my answer is ready. Such was not the case. We know all
too little about the Arthurian romancers of the twelfth century, but
we can say with considerable assurance that it was neither Louis
nor Philip Augustus who fostered their undertakings.
Gaimar wrote for the benefit of an Anglo-Norman lady, and
Wace, according to Layamon, presented his Brut to Queen Eleanor
of Poitou. The enigmatic Marie de France, whoever she may have
been, was somehow connected, everyone now agrees, with the court
of Henry II.? The equally unknown authors of the two early poems
on Tristan, Thomas and Béroul, were respectively Anglo-Norman
and Norman. Chrétien de Troyes had as patrons Marie de Cham-
pagne, the daughter of Eleanor of Poitou, and Philip, Count of
Flanders. Robert de Boron’s dialect has been much in dispute, but
has been thought to have Anglo-Norman characteristics, though
prevailingly that of Picardy. Attempts have been made to identify
him with two knights holding land in England; and he himself refers
to Gautier de Mont-Belial as his lord, Mont-Belial being inter-
preted as Montbéliard in Burgundy. Wauchier de Denain, finally,
appears to have written his continuation of Chrétien’s Perceval
while under the protection of Philippe, Marquis de Namur.
What can be ascertained from dialect and dedications indicates,
accordingly, that the Arthurian material was used in the first place
1 See Bruce, op. cit., I, 19.
2 See, Die Lais de Marie de France, ed. K. Warnke (Bibliotheca Normannica, Vol. ITI, 3d
ed., 1925), pp. iii-ix.
7
:
a
4
4
:
uis
and
anor
have
court
oems
rman
ham-
nt of
x but
ough
ntify
-efers
inter-
nally,
rceval
cates,
place
III, 34
King Arthur and Politics 51
by writers who either had English or Norman connections, or at
least were not nearly concerned with the prestige of the French kings
as set over against the English. Once popularized, of course, the
stories belonged to all the world, and were obviously used and
embroidered by Continental writers without thought of any dynastic
or national considerations. Chrétien de Troyes, who cannot have
been a nationalist of any stripe any more than his royal patroness
(or her mother, for that matter) may well have been the chief instru-
ment by which the matter of Britain passed into the realm of pure
fancy. But Geoffrey of Monmouth, meanwhile, had accomplished
his purpose: he had romanticized England’s past, and done it so
effectually that we are under the spell of Celtic tradition even to
this day.
Princeton UNIVERSITY.
frey
les.! |
ro-
rent =
eltic |
de-
and
elves
arle-
ourt
w all
, but
ON THE SYMBOLS OF ABBREVIATIONS FOR -TUR
By EDWARD KENNARD RAND
N that indispensable work, Notae Latinae, Professor Lindsay
pointed out, on the basis of a wealth of illustrations, that the
figure-2 symbol for -tur is later than the apostrophe-sign, not coming
into general use until about the year 820.1 From this fact, three
inferences, it would seem, may be drawn:
(1) The constant use of the 2-symbol in a manuscript indicates,
ceteris paribus, that the manuscript was written after 820.
(2) If a manuscript contains both symbols, or other varieties, it
probably belongs in a period of transition, being written either just
before or just after 820.
(3) The presence of the apostrophe-sign alone indicates a date
clearly before 820.
That these rules are in general most helpful, any one who has
worked with them will gladly admit. There is a question, however,
whether we are so certain of the date when the new symbol was
invented. I have long been perplexed as to how to apply the rules
to certain books of Tours. The “Alcuin Bible” of Bamberg, for
instance, which I have always regarded as genuinely an Alcuin
Bible, written either under Alcuin himself or not many years after
his death, contains both the apostrophe and the figure 2 as symbols
for -tur, and on this ground should be dated not much earlier than
820. Another book is the Virgil of Bern (No. 165), which, so far as
I am aware, has only the 2-sign. This manuscript, therefore, which
I have been tempted to place not much later than the Bamberg
Bible, ought to have been done after 820. I am aware of the slippery
nature of the ground on which palaeographers must proceed in the
various attempts — which owe so much to Traube’s inspiration — to
trace the history of the different schools of script in the eighth and
1 Notae Latinae: An Account of Abbreviations in Latin MSS of the Early Minuscule Period
(c. 700-850), (Cambridge, England: the University Press, 1915), p. 377. Lindsay adds certain _
examples in his article, “The (Early) Lorsch Scriptorium,” Palaeographia Latina, III (1924), :
18f.
52
}
|
|
gfe sory {‘ sinxst
wnsobs von L
|
4
?
i?
4
&
=
j
The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur 53
ninth centuries. The task is fascinating; the danger’s self is lure
alone. When the evidence is all in — and it will come from a study
not only of the script but of the illumination! — I may perhaps have
to modify the theory of the history of the script of Tours that I have
thus far held and briefly presented.* For the moment, I would not
abandon my position; for certain data have come to light which
lead me to doubt whether one should date a book of Tours as late
as 820 just because it contains the 2-symbol.*
Lindsay’s treatment is a model of caution as well as of research.
He makes clear that the 2-sign appeared at different times in different
centres. His material indicates that North France and North Italy
led the way in the adoption of the new symbol,‘ and he summons
investigators to follow farther the clues that he has discovered. In
a very recent work, moreover, he presents new evidence, the im-
portance of which is obvious enough. In collaboration with Pro-
fessor Paul Lehmann, Traube’s worthy successor at Munich, Lind-
say has published a study of certain manuscripts of Mayence,® a
companion-piece to his previous article® on the early scriptorium of
Lorsch, and thereby has thrown no little light on one of the dark spots
which the present method of palaeographical investigation is seeking
to illuminate. Lindsay shows that the apostrophe is the symbol em-
ployed in MSS. Vat. Pal. 578, 579, and 1447, but he also records one
instance of the 2-sign in the Codex Oblongus of Lucretius.’ This
symbol, as the Keeper of the Manuscripts at Leyden informed him,
is by the scribe himself.* This is a point of some importance; for,
1 Forthcoming publications by Professor Wilhelm Kéhler of Weimar and Professor A. M.
Friend of Princeton should add greatly to our information on the latter point.
2 See “‘The Vatican Livy and the Script of Tours,” Memoirs of the American Academy
in Rome, I (1917), 19 ff.
* Correspondingly, I have been led to doubt whether the presence of the apostrophe-sign
is as conclusive evidence as Lindsay believes (Palaeographia Latina, III (1924), 8, 13) that a
book “‘cannot be so late as the second half of the ninth century.” I must reserve this point
for a later discussion. * Notae Latinae, p. 378.
5 Palaeographia Latina, IV (1925), 15 ff. © [bid., TIL (1924), 1 ff.
7 Leyden, Voss. F. 30, fol. 34: ferantur. The manuscript has been published in facsimile
in Codices Graeci et Latini photographice depicti duce Seatone de Vries, XII (1908), with an
introduction by E. Chatelain. Abbreviations are rare in this edition de luxe. Apparently
the scribe permits them only when forced by the length of the line. I have discovered no other
cases, in the first hand, of the abbreviation of -tur by the figure-2 or any other symbol.
§ Pal. Lat. 1V ( = P. L.), p. $2.
¢
{
|
=
f
}
54 The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur
as Lindsay points out,’ it is often impossible to decide from photo-
graphs or facsimiles whether the final stroke in a figure 2 is not due
to a later corrector, to whom the apostrophe-sign had come to mean
nothing but -tus. Abbreviations of any sort are comparatively rare
in the books of Mayence, as both Lindsay and Lehmann testify.”
Apparently, at the opening of the ninth century, whenever the
writers in this scriptorium did abbreviate -tur, they regularly used
the apostrophe.* And yet the occurrence of even one case of the
figure 2 in one of these ancient books — for Lindsay apparently asso-
ciates the Oblongus with this group — makes us pause. One swallow
does not make a spring, but what if it appears on New Year’s Day?
Lindsay had already trapped one of these rarae aues, for he records
as the earliest appearance of the 2-symbol known to him that in
Paris, B. N. lat. 13159, a Psalter of Charlemagne, written in small
uncial script between 795 and 800.‘
Two manuscripts are described by Lindsay in his article on the
School of Mayence and rightly excluded from his list of the books
of that school: Vat. Pal. lat. 1448, Computistica, etc., “written by
various scribes at various times, the first part (foll. 1-44) at Tréves
in the year 810,” ° and Vat. Pal. lat. 161, Lactantius, Institutiones
Diuinae, “written at St Amand when Lotharius presided over the
scriptorium, saec. viii/ix.””* On the first of these books he notes
that the 2-symbol occurs “both in the Tréves portion and the rest
but the apostrophe-symbol on fol. 70".” 7 Whether the latter symbol
is also found in the Tréves portion or not, here is good evidence that
the 2-symbol was employed in this scriptorium at least as early as
810. In the book of St Amand, which would seem to be at least as
early, the 2-symbol is used by one of the scribes. Here, then, are
two different centres in which this sign was known and at least to
some extent practised in the opening years of the ninth century.
Perhaps, as the Oblongus of Lucretius indicates, the same thing may
be said about Mayence. All of these cases illustrate Lindsay’s further
statement that the new symbol was adopted early in the monasteries
1 Notae Latinae ( = N. L.), p. 378. 2 P. L., p. $2.
3 Ibid., p. 35. 4 N. L., p. $76. 5 P. L., p. 2. 6 Ibid., p. 26.
? Ibid. See also N. L., p. $76.
:
|
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ol
}
;
La
—
WA
i
e
n i
2
y? a
=
all
he @
ks @
yes
nes
the
bol
hat
as
4
q a
The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur 55
of Italy and North France, with which would be included the dis-
tricts along the Rhine.’
Still another example may be added from Lindsay’s article on the
early Scriptorium of Lorsch.*? Among the books left to that monas-
tery in 814 by Gerward, who lived at Ghent in Holland, is a copy of
St Augustine on Genesis (Vat. Pal. lat. 234); it was written for Ger-
ward by Flotbertus, ‘clericus suus.’ This scribe uses the 2-symbol.
Lindsay states that for this reason it must be the latest of Gerward’s
books. Whether this deduction is sound or not, here is a book of
the north in which the 2-symbol occurred at least as early as 814.
From the valuable collection of photographs amassed by the late
Abbé Liebaert, whose death is the most deplorable loss sustained
by palaeography since that of Traube, at least two further examples
may be gathered. One occurs in Paris, B. N. lat. 17371, a copy of
St Jerome on Jeremiah written at St Denis, 793-806. On fol. 18”,
which shows a clear round minuscule following a rather crude head-
ing, the 2-symbol appears in the word arbitrantur. This fact should
be added to Lindsay’s statement ‘ that in this manuscript the apos-
trophe is used for -ur. How frequent the 2-sign is and whether it is
surely by the first hand I do not know. Similarly, in a manuscript
of Montpellier, Univ. 141, an approach to the 2-symbol is found
in saluabuntur * and in contristetur.6 The form resembles an inverted
v, which Lindsay at first was tempted to call a Burgundian symbol.’
He dates the book “‘c. 800,” and certainly the script has early
traces, such as the Merovingian h with the tall shaft curving to the
left. It contains, among other things, Alcuin’s de Fide Sanctae
Trinitatis and his letter to Gundisda, de Animae Ratione, both works
being written only a year or two before their author’s death.* I
1 N. L., p. 378. * P. L., Ill, 1 ff.
3 No. 1154 in Lindsay’s printed account of these photographs; No. 1213 in the typewritten
list furnished by the Vatican authorities.
4 N. L.,p.376. It is used for -ws twice in the small section of text reproduced in Liebaert’s
photograph (dictamus and deploremus).
5 Fol. 53 (No. 1228 Lindsay = 734 Vatican).
6 Fol. 118 (1231 L = 737 V). 7 N. L., p. 874.
8 In the preface to the de Fide, Froben finds a reference to the year 802; see Migne,
P. L., C (1851), 1. The letter is ascribed to the period 801-804. See Mon. Germ. Hist.,
Epistolae Karolini Aeui, iv (1895), 473 ff.
|
wy 4
is
q
;
i
;
ta
4
=
j
y
q
f
i
At
et
56 The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur
venture to think that the Montpellier manuscript was written in
the south of France, as its present location would indicate.
Here, then, are four and perhaps five or six different places in
apparently different regions in which the 2-symbol was known in
the early years of the ninth century. Another scriptorium in which
this sign was in use was Cologne. Says Lindsay: !
We might give this form [the recumbent u or y] the name of the ‘Bur-
gundian’ symbol (although it is probably also to be found outside of Bur-
gundy), were it not that the Cologne usage suggests that it is merely a
variety of the ‘Italian’ symbol. For in Cologne MSS of Hildebald’s
time practically any form of stroke above ¢ represents ‘tur,’ a wavy form,
a 7-form, a cup-form, the lower half of a small circle, an almost vertical
stroke hooked at each end, etc., as well as the normal horizontal straight
stroke.
These last two are varieties of what Lindsay calls the Italian symbol.
He refrains from assigning approximate dates to the different books
written under Hildebald (794-819). There are ten manuscripts in
the Dombibliotek to-day that bear the inscription CODEX SANCTI
PETRI SUB PIO PATRE HILDEBALDO SCRIPTUS or the
like,? and twelve others that owing to the nature of the correcting
hands seem to belong with this group. Some of these, surely, must
show the style in vogue at St Peter’s at the very beginning of the
century.
Since the publication of Notae Latinae, the abbreviations of Co-
logne have been very profitably studied by H. Foerster. With one
exception, which we shall presently note, he does not distinguish the
manuscripts in point of date. For a preliminary study this caution
is commendable. Possibly, however, we may at least separate the
earlier from the later books of Hildebald in several cases. Thanks
to the kindness of Domprobst Middendorf and Dr Lohmann, in
charge of the Dombibliotek when I visited it last summer, a num-
1 N. L., p. $74.
2 See the catalogue by Jaffé and Wattenbach, Ecclesiae Metropolitanae Coloniensis,
Codices Manuscripti (Berlin, 1874), pp. 4f. No. 212, which is inscribed in dei nomine Hildi-
baldus, must not be reckoned in the list. See H. Foerster, Die Abkiirzungen in den Kélner
Handschriften der Karolingerzeit (Tiibingen, 1916), p. 3. Foerster selects for treatment four-
teen manuscripts that surely were written under Hildebald.
3 See the preceding note.
“¥
:
-
J
The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur 57
ber of the manuscripts were sent to the Universitits- und Stadt-
bibliotek, where through the courtesy of the librarian Professor Dr
Loeffler and the unfailing kindness of Dr Theele and Obersecretir
Thomann, I was able to make some study — all too brief — of
these books.
The book to which I devoted most time was Coder 106, which
some authorities have assigned to the School of Tours.' According
to their view, it was written under the supervision of Alcuin in 802
for his friend Arno of Salzburg and contains, among other things,
Alcuin’s Exposition of the Psalms. The noted mediaevalist, Wilhelm
Meyer, had made a minute study of this manuscript and had come
to the conclusion that it was surely a book of Tours. It is a pity, as
Lindsay says, that his notes on the matter have not been published.
Lindsay subscribes to his opinions in no uncertain terms. “This
must be the MS.,” he declares, “hurriedly prepared for Arn by
Alcuin in 802. It is a milestone for the Alcuin-stage of Tours minus-
cule.” ? If this, then, is a book of Alcuin’s time, we may be sure that
the 2-symbol was known and used at St Martin’s at the beginning
of the ninth century,’ along with the apostrophe-sign ‘ and what
Lindsay * calls the Italian sign, a horizontal stroke with a small
vertical cap at either end. The Anglo-Saxon symbol also appears,
a long wavy line, suggesting an ancient cursive s, cutting the right
end of the top stroke of the ¢t.? Meyer found twenty hands in
this book.* In the time at my disposal, I was not sure that I could
detect so many; it is safe to say that at least a dozen writers can
readily be distinguished, and that though in most cases they employ
no abbreviation at all for -tur, the scriptorium was acquainted with
three kinds of compendia just described.
I fear, however, that we cannot maintain on this evidence that
the 2-symbol was known at Tours before the death of Alcuin, for
1 For earlier discussions, see W. Arndt, Schriftafeln zur Erlernung der lateinischen Paldo-
graphie, 11 (Ste Auflage, besorgt von M. Tangl, Berlin, 1898), Tafeln 39, 40, 44-47.
2 P. L., III (1994), 7.
3 E.g., committuntur, fol. 17°; dilectatur, fol. 28”.
* E.g., dominatur, fol. 40. 5 N.L., p. 878.
E.g., fol. 10”: lapidaretur.
7 E.g., fol. 51: loquatur. See N. L., p. 379.
5 See N. L., p. 453; P. L., III (1924), 7.
n
n
h
r-
A
a,
al
at
{
cS
7
in
1€
ig
st a
4
ne :
O-
he
on
he
in
-
sis,
°
yur-
58 The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur
despite the weighty authority of Lindsay I am convinced, if I am
convinced of anything, that MS. 106 was no product of the scrip-
torium of St Martin’s. It clearly is one of the books of Cologne.
Proof of this conviction must be postponed to another article, but
I can af least indicate now the similarity of one of the hands in this
manuscript to one of those in another book written under Hildebald
of St Peter’s.1 The hands are not the same, but the general styles
are strikingly similar. Meanwhile let us turn our attention to some
of these early books of Cologne.
We may begin with the manuscript to which I have just referred,
No. 83", which contains various Chronica (Jerome, Isidore, Bede,
etc.). Its date may be stated with some precision. According to
Jaffé and Wattenbach in their catalogue,’ the first part was written
in 798 and the rest of the book in 805. Chroust, with better reason,
assigns the entire manuscript to the later date.’ There are certain
signs of antiquity in the abbreviations, as the following list (illus-
trative, not complete) will make clear:
Ante. an with horizontal stroke above. (Floerster], p. 51; N.L., p. 8)
Inter. i longa with a cross-bar. Often. (F., p. 13; N.L., p. 111)
Ergo. er with horizontal stroke above. Often. (F., p. 55; N.L., p. 66)
Secundum. Minuscule s with cross-bar; su, with horizontal stroke above;
rarely sc with horizontal stroke above. (F., pp. 73, 75; N.L., pp. 279 ff.)
The last two symbols are not cited by Lindsay. Perhaps, in view of the
nature of the text, in which numerals abound, these forms should be
classed under “Capricious Abbreviations.” (N.L., pp. 415 ff.)
Sine. sn with horizontal stroke above. (N.L., p. 291; not noticed by F.)
These ancient notae may well have come in by way of Ireland, where
they formed the basis of the elaborate set of symbols developed by
Irish scribes.‘ Further marks of Ireland are apparent in the follow-
ing list:
1 See Plate I (MS. 106, fol. 29°), and Plate II (MS. 83", fol. 25).
2 Op. cit., p. 29.
3 A. Chroust, Monumenta Palaeographica, Serie II, Lieferung vii, Tafel 1. Hence Foers-
ter, op. cit., p. 5: “um 805.”
4 See the references in N. L. to the different symbols just discussed, and the remarks of
Dom A. Wilmart in his brilliant article on Un Ancien Manuscrit de Saint-Bertin en Lettres
Onciales (Saint-Omer, 1926), p. 8.
PLatre TIT
Ill
4
it
is
to
en
n
>
4
3
pe |
j
:
by
a
ettres
ks of
|
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fe
an
4+
The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur 59
Cuius. cs with horizontal stroke above. Often in foll. 114-124". (F.,
p. 51; N.L., p. 37)
Tantum. im with horizontal stroke above. Tamen. itn with horizontal
stroke above. Rarely in foll. 110-125. tm is used for tamen once.
(F., p. 77; N.L., pp. 302, 305)
Trans. ts with horizontal stroke above. Often. (F., p. 79; N.L., pp.
309 ff.)
Unde. un with horizontal stroke above. Often in foll. 110-125. (F., p. 79;
N.L., p. 319)
Other examples will be found on Plate III ( = fol. 116); for instance
h- for hoc, an Anglo-Saxon symbol (Notae Latinae, p. 101) and for
propter, p with an apostrophe above curving to the right and a
curved line below continuing the loop of the letter to the left, as in
the usual abbreviation for pro. This looks like a misunderstanding
or a modification of the Irish symbol in which the apostrophe above
is attached to the letter and curves to the left; the symbol is
thus a combination of the signs for pro and per (Notae Latinae, p.
198). We may also note for autem both aut with horizontal stroke
above, and a modification of the familiar Irish symbol, an h with
an angular stroke reaching from the end of the loop towards the
right. We may perhaps infer that at least in this part of the manu-
script ! a scribe is at work who either is copying an Irish original or
is himself familiar, somewhat imperfectly familiar, with the Insular
abbreviations. The character of the abbreviations throughout the
manuscript bespeaks a fairly early date, well comporting with the
year 805 to which the book is assigned.
We may now note that both the apostrophe-sign and the 2-symbol
are frequently found as abbreviations for -tur, along with various
modifications. We may say, then, that the 2-symbol is a constant
feature of this book, written not long after the opening of the ninth
century.
Another book done under Hildebald is No. 54, containing St
Jerome’s commentaries on Obadiah, etc. It is assigned by Jaffé
and Wattenbach to the end of the eighth or the beginning of the
1 Foll. 110-125. See the Tables in F.
2 See for instance on Plate III (fol. 116) includuntur (apostrophe) and rebatur, partly cut
away on the last line (2).
i
4
4
3
J
—
ig
a
j
;
i
a
i
|
f
be
ag
2
60 The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur
ninth century. Certainly the script looks earlier than that of No.
83". For instance, h with the Merovingian sloping shaft is common
in several of the hands. See Plate IV ( = fol. 2v). The apostrophe-
sign occurs rarely. Much more frequent is the 2-symbol,' which
shows a number of modifications. In one of these it has the final
stroke curved * and in another assumes a shape like a sickle or the
customary sign of interrogation.*
Among other books is No. 60, St Jerome on Micah, which is not
reported by Foerster and at which I could only glance, noting the
2-symbol on fol. 16v. The book is ascribed to saec. viii/ix by Jaffé
and Wattenbach. To the same date these scholars assign No. 74,
St Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana, which has instances of both
the apostrophe and the figure-2,‘ as well as rare occurrences of the
‘Italian’ symbol. The date of No. 92, containing the letters of
Gregory the Great, is not so definitely assigned. The apostrophe is
common and the figure-2 is rare, but the horizontal ‘Italian’ sign
or modifications of it are frequently found.® No. 115, containing
Canonum Collectio Dionysiohadrianea, has all three of the forms just
described and all three are found frequently.” No. 103, Bede, de
Temporum Ratione, has all three forms, but the 2-symbol is rarer
than the other two.* An occasional variation is a wavy line, like an
inverted S placed above the ¢; this may occur in the middle of a
word.® No. 171, containing homilies, gives one the impression of
comparative lateness. The 2-symbol and decorated horizontal stroke
abound; the apostrophe is missing.!° There is a curious modification
of the 2-symbol, consisting of an oblique line sloping to the right
with a curve attached to the left of the top point; it is apparently
the 7-form of which Lindsay speaks."
An account of other Hildebaldian books may be found in Foerster.
I have mentioned here only those that I saw, but I have presented
1 F., p. 100. E.g., fol. 5, habetur; fol. 24, appellabatur; fol. 33, dilatabitur.
2 E.g., fol. 14, sequitur. 3 E.g., fol. 82, interpretatur.
‘ E.g., fol. 7, intellegatur. 5 F., p. 101.
6 E.g., fol. 69, dicitur. F., p. 101.
7 F., ibid. The 2-symbol occurs, e.g., fol. $4, subiciantur.
P., ibid. 9 E.g., fol. 167%, conturbato.
10 F., ibid. For the figure-2, cf. e.g., fol. 4, contemplabatur; fol. 20, dicitur.
u E.g., fol. 30, adquiruntur; N. L., p. 374.
|
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The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur 61
enough evidence, I believe, to show that the 2-symbol was practised
at Cologne at the opening of the ninth century. If we could call
No. 106 a book of Tours, we could also be sure of the use of this
symbol at St Martin’s in the same period. Although, once more,
I feel confident that this manuscript was written at the scriptorium
of St Peter’s, its contents bespeak an interest in Alcuin on the part
of Hildebald. There are approaches to the script of Tours in the
book, best explained, I should say, by supposing that a copy made
at St Martin’s and presented to Hildebald was the original of the
copy made at Cologne. It is clear that the influence of Tours is
elsewhere evident in the style of Cologne, a matter that I must
leave until another time. For the moment I feel more doubtful than
ever that we must assign a book of St Martin’s to so late a date as
820 just because it contains the 2-symbol.
Moreover, a crucial instance is perhaps offered us in one of the
earlier books of Tours. This is MS. 10, formerly No. 151 of St
Martin’s, a copy of the Octateuch of great importance to the editors
of the new Vatican revision of the Vulgate. I had regarded the script
as Pre-Alcuinian when I first examined it in 1912, and now it would
appear from the monumental work of Dom Quentin ! that it is one
of the sources of Alcuin’s recension of the text. Berger ? followed by
Collon® had also called attention to the somewhat primitive character
of its script, which suggests the end of the eighth or the beginning of
the ninth century. Recently, M. Lauer ‘ ascribes it to a period closely
following the writing of the Maurdramnus Bible at Corbie (772-780).
This estimate is almost identical with my own; I should put the
book a bit later, but still before the arrival of Alcuin at Tours. Dom
Chapman, in a penetrating study presented in two numbers of the
1 Mémoire sur L’ Etablissement du Texte de la Vulgate, 1** partie, Octateuche (Rome, 1922),
pp. 268, 282 ff. Dom Quentin gives enough facts in this case to allow a judgment independent
of his questionable method of textual criticism. See my article in Harvard Theological Review,
XVII (1922), 197 ff.
? Histoire de la Vulgate (Paris, 1898), pp. 204, 246, 419.
* Catalogue général des manuscrits des Bibliothéques Publiques de France, Départements,
XXXVII (1900), i, 8.
‘ “La Réforme Carolingienne de |l’Ecriture Latine et L’Ecole calligraphique de Corbie,”
Mémoires présentés par divers savants @ Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, XIII
(1924), 21. See his Pl. VII for a bit of the script.
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62 The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur
Revue Bénedictine,’ says of our manuscript that “precisely as its
palaeography suggests an earlier date than the great Alcuinian
Bibles, so its text suggests an earlier date than Alcuin.” ? After
considering the rival hypotheses that “‘it is either derived from the
text on which Alcuin based his recension, or else it is merely an
Alcuinised text, written by an elderly scribe soon after the publica-
tion of Alcuin’s Bible,” he finally suggests * that “the most probable
origin for Mar is that it is a copy made at Tours c. 800 of the very
codex which was the basis of Alcuin’s revision,” adding that the
text has been corrected a good deal in Genesis but not much in
Exodus, and remains close to Alcuin in the latter book.
I wonder whether it is not more natural to suppose that after
Alcuin’s new recension had appeared, the energies of the scriptorium
would have been directed to making copies of that work rather than
of one of its sources. In my article on Dom Quentin’s Mémoire,‘
I expressed the hope that one might find for the Octateuch some
Irish source, a text as obviously Irish as that of the Gospels con-
tained in the Book of Armagh, and added that “we should imagine
that Alcuin might have found an Irish text at St Martin’s, and used
it among his sources; for there is a period of Irish influence in the
development of the script of Tours before his coming.” This hope
has been gratified by Dom Chapman’s article, in which he makes it
most probable that Mar and Mo depend upon archetypes of an
Irish character.° Why the original of Mar was “‘presumably one of
Alcuin’s own codices,” I cannot see. As is stated before, the Irish
were in Tours before his time.* From considerations of text alone,
1 XXXVII (1925), 5-46; 365-403.
2 Ibid., p. 14. This is my view exactly. Dom Chapman attributes to me the statement
that Mar “can hardly be later than 810.” I made this remark, however (op. cit., p. 240), not
about Tours 10 but about the ‘Alcuinian’ Bibles in general.
3 Tbid., p. 18. 4 Op. cit., p. 246. 5 Op. cit., p. 19.
6 The proof, it seems to me, is found in MS. Egerton 2831 of the British Museum (St
Jerome on Isaiah), which is attested as one of the books of St Martin’s by notes (fol. 1) in
a Merovingian script. The statement of the editors of The New Palaeographical Society
(London, 1907), Pls. 107,108 that the manuscript was written “‘c. 800” must give place to
that to which Lindsay seems to incline, “‘saec. VIII med.” See Palaeographia Latina, II
(1924), 7. Of course we must be prepared for the possibility, emphasized by Lindsay, that
this book was presented to St Martin’s and was not a product of its scriptorium. I must
reserve a more adequate discussion for another occasion.
}
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The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur 63
it is most natural, I believe, to regard Mar as copied from an Irish
book of Tours before the coming of Alcuin or at least before his
recension appeared. With this supposition the nature of the script
comports. For the moment I will content myself with a statement
that I think everybody will accept, namely, that Tours No. 10 was
written not later than the beginning of the ninth century.’
At least three hands appear in the book, that of the first six
leaves being called later by Berger * and Collon * ( = Hand A). The
disposition of the text would at first thought seem to warrant this
opinion. Hand B begins a new gathering on fol. 7, with part of the
eighth verse of Genesis 2 (‘dominus deus paradisum’), Hand A in
the preceding leaves writes St Jerome’s introductory matter and the
text of Genesis through a part of 2, 14, ends abruptly in the middle
of a word ( fluminis tertii tig) and leaves a half of the second column
on fol. 6 and all of fol. 6v vacant. This looks as if he were supple-
menting a book that had lost its first gathering. But it is also pos-
sible that scribes A and B began at the same time to copy different
portions of the original manuscript, which, like the Puteanus of
Livy,‘ had been dismembered and assigned to several scribes for
simultaneous copying. I will not go further into details, and I will
also admit that the second hypothesis is, in the present case, less
robable. But even if the opening leaves are a later addition, they
ere not added very long after the book was done, as I think is
bvious from the script — the original leaves might have been mis-
aid, or somehow damaged. As Plates V and VI will make clear,
he same general style is exhibited in Hand A as elsewhere in the
ook, — a round, clear, unusually large minuscule, distinguished by
arious Pre-alcuinian features on which I will not comment here.
erger ° expresses the essential character of Hand B, which he regards
“Pécriture primitive,” in calling it “une belle et grosse minuscule, que
on pourrait dater de la fin du VIII’ siécle presque aussi bien que du
mencement du IX*.”’ He, too, would not date the first gathering
1 Of course adding ‘ceteris paribus,’ mindful (see Dom Chapman, op. cit., p. 14) of the
ible existence of an aged scribe still bound to the manner of a half-century before.
2 Op. cit., p. 419. 3 Op. cit., p. 8.
* See Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, I (1917), 35 ff.
5 Op. cit., p. 204.
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64 The Symbols of the Abbreviations for -Tur
much after the core of the book; it is “wn peu posterieur.” 1 Cer-
tainly Hand A has not at all the appearance of an artificial variety
assumed by a later writer to comport with the character of the
original script; had he been an artist so competent as that, he would
have fitted in his supplement less crudely.
The character of the text in the first gathering, as Dom Chapman
is kind enough to inform me in a letter, agrees in the main with the
Alcuinian revision. One might say, therefore, that these leaves
were copied from some manuscript in which that revision was given.
Still, in one of the ten test readings mentioned by Dom Chapman,’
it differs from that text, and in seven of the ten, the reading agrees
with Mo. Since Mo is either a source of Alc,* or a descendant of that
Irish form of text which was accessible at both Corbie and Tours,‘
these seven readings may well have been taken by Hand A not from
an Alcuinian book, but from the Irish manuscript at Tours which
Alcuin himself had used. Of the three remaining readings, then, it is
as reasonable to say that Alcuin took them from the Irish book — or
from Hand A in Mar — as that Hand A took them from Ale.
A further point of importance is that if Hand A were copying an
Alcuinian book, he would presumably have added to the preface of
St Jerome, beginning ‘Desiderii mez,’ the long letter of St Jerome to
Paulinus, beginning ‘Frater Ambrosius,’ which is a feature of Alc.*
But this letter does not appear in Mar. After the preface ‘Desiderii
met’ come the capitula, which are immediately succeeded by the
text of Genesis. This tips the scales, I should say, in favor of the
supposition that Hand A, whenever he wrote, was copying not some
Alcuinian book but its source. In any case, Hand A wrote his part
not long after the rest of the book was done.
To come to the point with which I am specially concerned in this
paper, the syllable -tur is generally not abbreviated in the body of
the book. If the scribe wishes to save space, he uses a ligature of
1 Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, I (1917), p. 419. So Dom Quentin, op. cit.,
p. 268: “les premiéres pages . . . refaites, mais de bonne heure.”
2 In Gen. i, 17 Mar (so also Vall) does not interpolate deus as the other Alc do.
? Dom Quentin’s view; see op. cit., p. 282.
* Dom Chapman’s view; see op. cit., p. 19, and above, p. 62.
5 See Dom Quentin, op. cit., p. 286.
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he last two letters, or of all five letters in the case of -uwntur,' in the
ashion practised at Tours since the oldest sure memorial of the
criptorium of St Martin’s of which we have record.? Only in the
mall minuscules used for capitula, does the apostrophe-sign occur,
nd there I observed it but twice. In Hand A, however, the 2-
ymbol stares the reader in the face.‘
I think, therefore, that I may conclude with some positiveness
at the 2-symbol was known and practised at Tours either before
Icuin or not long after his death, and that its presence in any other
f the books of Tours is not tpso facto a proof that the book in ques-
on was written as late as 820. And thereby hangs a tale.®
1 E.g., fol. 134”, ceditur; fol. 57, co(m)plebuntur. The reluctance of the scribe to resort to
symbol for ur is shown on fol. 142, where condemnabitur comes at the end of a line. Instead
putting a symbol above t, he writes conde(m)nabi and adds the ligatured-tur on the line
low.
: The Paris Eugippius, B.N., N.A. lat. 1575. See L. Deslisle, Notice sur un manuscrit
ér tenant des fragments d Eugyppius appartenant @ M. Jules Desnoyers (Paris,
75), pl. 1, 1. 8: APERIATUR.
+ Fol. 221, moriatur (bis). On fol. 76” the 2-symbol is added to reuerterent clearly by a
er hand.
* Fol. 2, uocabitur, uidebantur (see Plate V); fol. 5, multiplicentur.
5 The present article was already in type when I received Luigi Schiaparelli’s Avvia-
to allo Studio delle Abbreviature Latine nel Medioevo (Firenze: Olschki, 1926). I will
rely observe that Schiaparelli (page 50 ff.) distinguishes the apostrophe used in the abbre-
tion of Post, Sed and -tur, from the semicircle which represented -us as in corpus. Of
figure 2, he remarks “Di derivazione dall’apostrofo, se non dalla corrispondente nota
niana, ¢ forse il segno 2 per ur, che non sembra anteriore alla fine del secolo VIII —
enuto caratteristico della sillaba -tur (@ usato anche per -mur).”
VARD UNIVERSITY.
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NOTES
A RESTORATION STUDY OF THE SOUTHWEST TOWER
AT CHARTRES
No visitor or student of Chartres fails to admire the sturdy old southwest
tower of the cathedral, but the satisfaction of the more discerning is some-
what diminished by the way in which the nave shoulders and crowds
against it on the northern side. We should know, even if we had not ex-
plicit evidence,' that it was designed for a smaller building. The two western
towers were, in fact, planned to stand a short distance in front of a spacious
basilica dating from 1020 and 1031. The north tower, begun about 1134,
is the earlier, but by 1150 both towers had reached the second story level;
about 1145 a new facade for the church was undertaken. This was set
deep in the recess between the towers, and included the celebrated Royal
Portal. Construction continued on the south tower, which was completed
about 1190. Meanwhile the church had been lengthened by relocating the
facade at the front plane of the towers. All of this later work survived the
‘wonderful and miserable fire” of 1194, which reduced the church proper
to ruins and was the occasion for the building of the existing structure.
It was my purpose in making the drawing presented here to show what
the appearance of the cathedral might be, had the old basilica with its
west front of 1145 come down to us, and in particular to show how magni-
ficent was the profile of the southwest tower when it still stood free. The
north spire is an invention, merely representing, more or less, what must
have been in the mind of the designer of the other; the drawing of the
basilica is as non-committal as possible, owing to the limited data, and it
must be confessed that two eleventh-century belfries of uncertain location
do not appear; but after all, the purpose of the picture is to show the un-
surpassed loveliness of the old spire.
KENNETH JOHN CONANT,
Harvard University.
Additional copies of Mr Conant’s drawing may be had for twenty-five
cents (25¢) each upon application to the Executive Secretary of the
Acapemy. — Ed.
1 R. Merlet and Abbé Clerval, Un Manuscrit chartrain du XI° siécle, Chartres: Garnier,
1893.
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66
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Reproduced by courtesy of G. H. Edgell Esqre
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Notes 67
KING OSWY AND CHDMON’S HYMN
Kine Oswy of Northumbria (b. 613-—d. 671) came to the throne of
Bernicia in 642, and added Deira in 655, after the battle of the Winweed.
As a consequence of this victory, he became, for a few years at least, su-
preme in England, and, even when his supremacy was threatened or dimin-
ished by King Wulfhere of Mercia (659-675), “‘seems still to have been
considered the greatest king in Britain, even though he was no longer its
undisputed master.” ! Before there had been any recognition of a decline
in his power, Oswy had used his prestige to effect the conversion to Chris-
tianity of King Sigbert of Essex (650—-660).? Bede’s account of this,’ some-
what abbreviated, is as follows:
At that time, also, the East Saxons, at the instance of King Oswy, again re-
ceived the faith, which they had formerly cast off [616]. For Sigbert . . . was then
king of that nation, and a friend to King Oswy, who, when Sigbert came to the
province of the Northumbrians to visit him, as he often did, used to endeavor to
convince him that those could not be gods that had been made by the hands of
men; that a stock or a stone could not be proper matter to form a god, the residue
whereof was either burned in the fire, or framed into any vessels for the use of men,
or else was cast out as refuse, trampled on, and turned into dust.‘ That God is
rather to be understood as . . . almighty, eternal,’ the Creator of heaven and earth
and of mankind,® . . . whose eternal abode must be believed to be in Heaven.’ .. .
King Oswy having often, with friendly counsel, like a brother, said this and much
more to the like effect of King Sigbert, at length . . . he was baptized . . . by Bishop
Finan,* in the king’s township . . . which is called At the Wall.®
On the death of his father Athelfrith in 617, and the accession of
Edwin, who had been thelfrith’s rival, Oswy, with his six brothers, had
taken refuge among the Irish and Picts, and remained in exile till the death
1 Oman, England before the Norman Conquest, 1923, p. 289.
2 Ibid., p. 283.
3 Eccl. Hist. 3.22. Subsequent citations of this work omit “‘ Eccl. Hist.”
* Cf. Isa. 40.19-20; 44.9-19; Jer. 10.3—5, 14-5.
5 Cf. Jer. 10.10 (“the true God, . . . and an everlasting king”’).
6 Jer. 10.12: ‘He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by
his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion”’; Isa. 44.24: ‘‘... Iam the
Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad
the earth by myself”; Isa. 40.22: “. . . . that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and
spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in”; cf. Ps. 104.2, 14-5, 24; 115.16: “. . . the earth
hath he given to the children of men.”
7 Heb. 8.1: “‘... We have such a high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of
the Majesty in the heavens.”
8 Bright (Chapters of Early English Church History, p. 170) would place this in 653.
® According to Bright (p. 168), at Newcastle; cf. Plummer (edition of Bede’s Eccl. Hist.)
2.176.
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68 Notes
of Edwin in 633, when they were allowed to return. During their residence
abroad, the brothers “were instructed according to the doctrine of the
Irish, and were renewed with the grace of baptism.” ! For our purpose, it
is significant that Oswy, “having been instructed and baptized by the
Irish, and being very perfectly skilled in their language, thought nothing
better than what they taught.” *
Accordingly, it would not be surprising if, after Oswy began to reign in
642, any religious instruction which he imparted was such as he had him-
self received at the hands of the Irish, and if the Scriptural foundation on
which it rested had been by them impressed upon his mind. Then, too,
from his accession till the death of Aidan in 651, he was probably in close
touch with that saintly bishop,’ and afterwards with his successor Finan
(651-661), who had also been sent from Iona.‘ The seat of their bishopric
was Lindisfarne, while Bamborough, the royal city, where Oswy must
often have resided for longer or shorter periods, was but a few miles distant.
This association with men who had received a similar Celtic training to
his own must have tended to keep his earlier lessons fresh in his recollection.
Besides, there had been from about 635 an influx of Irish missionaries into
Northumbria, for Bede (3.3) tells us:
From this time many came daily into Britain from the country of the Irish,
and with great devotion preached the word of faith to those provinces of the Eng-
lish over which King Oswald reigned. . . . English children, as well as their elders,
were instructed by their Irish teachers in study, and in the observance of monastic
discipline, since most of those who came to preach were monks.
The fruits of this teaching were visible some years later in the resort
of many Northumbrians to Ireland — or perhaps chiefly to Iona — for
the purpose of devoting themselves to the higher life; the hospitality of the
Irish to them being nothing less than remarkable. Thus Bede (3.27):
Many of the nobility and of the lower ranks of the English nation were there
[in Ireland] at that time, who in the days of the bishops Finan [651-661] and Colman
1 3.1. 2 3.25.
3 Bright (p. 156) places in 643 the attack on Bamborough by the heathen Penda (3.16),
on which occasion the prayers of Aidan were of vital assistance to the forces of Oswy. Cf.
3.26: ‘“The king himself, when occasion required, would come with only five or six servants,
and, having offered his prayers in the church [of Lindisfarne], would take his departure. If
they happened to partake of a repast there, they were satisfied with the plain daily fare of the
brethren, asking nothing beyond.”
4 The influence of the Irish on the East Saxons must have been further confirmed and
extended by Cedd, a product of the monastery at Lindisfarne (3.23), who, while yet a priest,
was sent by Oswy to preach to that nation, and afterward, having returned to Lindisfarne on
a visit to Finan (in 654, according to Bright, p. 170), was by him made bishop. Then, “pur-
suing with ampler authority the work he had begun, he built churches in various places, and
ordained priests and deacons to assist him” (3.22).
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Notes 69
[661-4], forsaking their native island, retired thither, either for the sake of sacred
studies or of a more ascetic life; and some of them presently subjected themselves
faithfully to a monastic life; others rejoiced rather to devote themselves to study,
going about from one master’s cell to another. The Irish willingly received them
all, and took care to supply them with daily food without cost, as also to furnish
them with books for their studies, and teaching free of charge.
In 655, Oswy, then 42 years of age, entered into relation with a woman
one year his junior, whose fame has eclipsed his own — Hild, the grand-
niece of Edwin! of Northumbria. She, who had been converted under
Roman influence, was baptized in 627 along with that king, being then
thirteen years of age. By 649? she had become abbess at Hartlepool.
Here she
began immediately to order it in all things under a rule of life which she had
received from learned men; for Bishop Aidan, and others of the religious who knew
her, used frequently to visit her, heartily to love her, and diligently to instruct her
(4.23).
In fulfilment of a vow which he had made when in conflict with Penda,
King of Mercia, Oswy in 655 committed his daughter Elfled, then scarce
a year old, to Hild, still at Hartlepool, at the same time devoting twelve
of his estates in Northumbria to the endowment of as many monasteries
(3.24). By about 657% Hild had established her monastery at Whitby,
where in 674 she fell ill, and died in 680, Elfled succeeding her as abbess,
and dying in 703.
Hild, as we have seen, was received into the church under Roman
auspices; but a score of years later we find her under the influence of the
Irish Aidan, Oswy’s bishop. Nine years after she had received King Oswy’s
daughter in charge, she took the part of the Irish at the Synod of Whitby,
“together with her followers, and with Bishop Cedd” (3.25). Even after
the Synod had decided in favor of the Roman date for Easter, she con-
tinued to oppose Wilfrith, who had been the spokesman on the Roman
side.*
From what has been said, it is clear that Oswy held with the Irish from
a date before 633, while there is no proof that Hild submitted to their
influence before 647, or thereabouts. In 664 he accepted the Roman
Easter (3.25), and by 671 * he “bore so great affection to the Roman Apos-
tolic usages that he designed, if he recovered from his sickness, to go to
Rome, and there end his days at the holy places, having asked Bishop
Wilfrith, with a promise of no small gift of money, to conduct him on his
' Whose daughter Eanfled, born in 626, married Oswy about 643—4 (Plummer 2.165).
2 Bright, p. 163. 3 Ibid., pp. 185, 274.
‘ Plummer 2.189; Eddi, Vita Wilfridi, chap. 54; Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and
Ecclesiastical Documents 3.262. 5 Cf. Plummer 2.211.
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journey” (4.5). Between 650 and 653, when he was plying King Sigbert
with arguments in favor of Christianity, and in 655, when he committed
his daughter to the care and tutelage of Hild, he still held aloof from the
Roman connection,’ although in 643 or 644 (see p. 69, note 1) he had married
a princess who was the first Northumbrian to be baptized by the Roman
Paulinus, a rite which her father, King Edwin, did not receive till the fol-
lowing year.
If now we consider that the monastery of Whitby was always pro-
Irish during Hild’s lifetime, and that, for twenty-five years before her death
in 680, she had been bound by a peculiar tie to King Oswy, who gave no
sign of submission to Roman sway until 664, it would appear that, at any
time before this latter date, such religious discourses of his as might come
to the attention of the religious at Whitby would be received by them with
deference; nay, since there was nothing in the exhortations to which we
have referred that would not have been equally acceptable to the represen-
tatives of Rome,’ there is no reason, since they effected the conversion of
a kingdom, why they should not have been welcomed among the faithful,
as well within the monastery as without.
Since, then, we may suppose the disciples of Hild to have been familiar
with Oswy’s arguments, there is every ground for suspecting, in view of
their much reading of the Bible,’ that they would have familiarized them-
selves with those passages of the Old Testament which the king must have
had in mind (see p. 67, notes 4-6).
As we have had occasion to remark (note 2, below), Oswy’s discourse
may be resumed under two heads — the being and power of God, and the
nothingness of idols. If the former of these is heartily accepted, the latter
doctrine should follow without much elaboration. At all events, there
can be no question that, if either one were to be instilled under the form
of verse, it is the former that should be chosen. Moreover, this teaching
should in that case be presented, not as a bare and abstract proposition,
1 Ecgfrith (671-685), who immediately followed his father Oswy, was instrumental in
expelling the Romanizing Wilfrith from his see (4.12, 13; 5.19, 24), in which action he was
followed (5.19) by his half-brother, Aldfrith (685-705).
2 In fact, the letter which Pope Boniface V addressed to King Edwin in 625 (2.10) touches
upon the two points stressed by Oswy in his admonition to Sigbert — the being and power of
God, and the nothingness of idols. But as this letter is here and there magniloquent and in-
volved to the verge of unintelligibility; as it is censured by Plummer (2.58) for its inconsiderate
tone; and as, for whatever reason, King Alfred’s translation of the Ecclesiastical History omits
far the largest part of it, we can hardly conceive that its contents were cherished at Whitby
a generation after it was written.
3 “She obliged those who were under her direction to give so much time to reading of the
Holy Scriptures . . . that many might readily be found there fit for the ecclesiastical dignity,
that is, for the service of the altar’ (4.23).
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Notes 71
but should be recommended by the consideration that the power of God
is bound up with the fortunes of humanity, that the world was created and
is administered for the benefit and behoof of the human race, that God is
the loving and beneficent Father of mankind.
It ought not to surprise us, then, if a stanza of verse composed in Hild’s
monastery upon this theme ran, when literally translated,! upon these
lines: ?
Now we must praise the Keeper of the heavenly kingdom,
The might of God, and his counsel,
The works of the Father * of glory, how he of every wonderful work ‘ —
The eternal Lord — established the beginning.
He first framed for the children of men
1 For the original, see Plummer 2.251.
2 Thus in Bede’s Latin:
“Nunc laudare debemus Auctorem regni celestis, potentiam Creatoris et consilium illius,
facta Patris glorise — quomodo ille, cum sit eternus Deus, omnium miraculorum Auctor
extitit, qui primo filiis hominum celum pro culmine tecti, dehinc terram Custos humani
generis omnipotens creavit.”
There is praise of God, or at least of Christ, as Creator, in the Voyage of Bran, written
in some monastery “‘early in the eighth, perhaps late in the seventh, century” (Kuno Meyer,
Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry, 2d ed., p. 111; cf. Dottin, The Gaelic Literature of Ireland,
tr. Joseph Dunn, 1906, p. 14; Encyc. Brit., 11th ed. 5.628), but, with much of the early Irish
literature, previously “handed down by many generations of bards and story-tellers”” (Meyer,
p. x). In this tale, the lyric put into the mouth of the fairy-maiden from the Otherworld con-
tains these lines (Meyer, p. 6):
A wonderful child will be born ages after,
Who will not be in high places,
The Son of a woman whose mate is unknown,
He will seize the rule of the many thousands.
A ruler without beginning, without end,
He has created the world so that it is perfect:
Earth and sea are his —
Woe to him that shall be under his ill-will!
’T is he that made the heavens.
For the “perfect” of line 6, cf. Gen. 1.31.
3 Cf. Isa. 9.6: “‘.... The mighty God, The everlasting Father...”; Isa. 63.16: ‘‘. ..
Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting”; add Deut. 32.6;
Isa. 64.8. For “Father of glory,” see Eph. 1.17; the compound occurs also in Chr. 217;
Men. 147.
* For such wonderful works (more literally, wonders), see, for example, Ps. 40.5; 77.11-2,
14; 89.5; 96.3-6; 105.5; 107.21, 23-5, 33-8; 136.4—-9; and cf. Ps. 104.24. The Psalter, beyond
any other book of the Bible, would assuredly have been familiar to the members of Hild’s
family, a fact which was no doubt in Brandl’s mind when he assumed (Gesch. der AE. Lit.,
p. 87) that the original of the hymn was Ps. 136.1-6, which here follows: “O give thanks
unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks unto the God
of gods: Refrain. O give thanks to the Lord of lords: Ref. To him who alone doeth great
7
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Notes
Heaven as a roof,' the holy Creator;
Then the earth the Keeper of mankind,
The eternal Lord, afterwards made,
The world for men, the King almighty.
Elsewhere I have said (Select Translations from Old English Poetry,
rev. ed., 1926, p. 76):
Czdmon’s? poetical activity falls within the abbacy of Hild of Whitby (658-
680); this is all that we can know concerning the date, which may therefore fall not
far from 665 or 670. The theme is praise to God as the Maker of heaven and earth
for men, at once emphasizing the power, the eternity, and the beneficence of the
Creator, together with the fact that all the marvels with which the universe is filled
have proceeded from His hand. The substitution of the Hebraic cosmogony, and
of this conception of divinity, for the pagan ones then current, of course wrought
a profound change in the sentiments of the makers of English literature, and hence
in the literature itself. How great was the influence of the new theory of creation
may be gathered from the fact that it forms the theme of the minstrel’s song in
Hrothgar’s hall, where the circumstances seem decidedly incongruous with it.
wonders: Ref. To him that by wisdom made the heavens: Ref. To him that stretched out
the earth above the waters: Ref.” But if any Psalm is to be designated as a possible original,
there is much to be said for a large part of Ps. 104.
1 Cf. Ps. 115.16; Isa. 40.22, cited on p. 67, note 6.
2 Cf. Encyc. Brit., 11th ed. 4.985 (Henry Bradley): “The name Ceedmon .. . is most
probably the British Cadman, intermediate between the Old Celtic Catumanus and the modern
Welsh Cadfan. Possibly the poet may have been of British descent, though the inference is
not certain, as British names may sometimes have been given to English children. The
name Czedwalla or Ceadwalla was borne by a British king mentioned by Beeda, and by a king
of the West Saxons. The initial element Ced— or Cead (probably adopted from British
names in which it represents catu, war) appears combined with the Old English terminal ele-
ment in the name Cedbed (cf., however, the Irish name Cathbad).”” Cadvan was the name
of a Welsh king with whom Edwin of Northumbria took refuge after the usurpation of his
kingdom by Zthelric. Cf. Plummer 2.93: ‘“The [twelfth-century] life of Oswald has preserved
this residence of Edwin at the court of Cadvan:... ‘Postea Cadwanus, cis Humbram reg-
nans, Edwinum... nutrivit cum Cadwallone filio suo,’ S. D. i.345.” Ibid., p. 114: “* Ceedwalla
is the Cadwallon of Welsh authorities, . . . the son of Edwin’s harborer Cadvan.... He was
the leader of the Welsh in their final struggle against the Angles.”” See Haddan and Stubbs
3.75; Bright, pp. 106, 126-8, 182; Oman, pp. 276-8. For the West-Saxon Czdwalla, see
Bede, Eccl. Hist. 4.12, 15, 16; 5.7.
ALBERT STANBURROUGH Cook,
Yale University.
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2
Notes 73
A NOTE UPON THE SUNDAY EPISTLE AND THE LETTER
OF POPE LEO
My attention was first called to the Sunday Epistle by Dieterich’s papers *
in which he attempted to trace its classical prototypes. This attempt may
be said categorically to have failed, for the Sunday Epistle has no classical
prototypes in any useful sense. The sealed letter, given by Asklepios at
Epidaurus to the poetess Anyte, which was the means of curing the eye-
sight of Phalysios,? was not a magical panacea but a specific remedy limited
to a particular occasion and a particular individual. The summoning to
witness of Juvenal’s “e caelo descendit yvaG@ ceavrév” * may be thought
to show greater zeal than sense of humour, and we may be pardoned for
supposing that statues which had fallen from Heaven, such as the ancient
world undoubtedly possessed, are very different matters from Himmels-
briefe, Weinreich’s supplement to these papers may similarly be accused of
displaying greater piety than pertinence.‘
Nor do I think that much is to be gained for the study of the Sunday
Epistle by casting too wide a net and raking in for comparison all the books
of Revelation, the Elchasaite scriptures and the rest down to the Book of
Mormon.’ The idea of the little book sent down from Heaven we know
well enough to be familiar to the centuries immediately succeeding the
birth of Christ, and that this very general idea has played a part in the
generation of the Sunday Epistle in the first instance is obvious. Further
elaboration seems a vain weariness of the flesh.
The date when the Sunday Epistle was first promulgated we have no
means of knowing. It would be purely fanciful to suggest any connection
with the first half-hearted temporising of Constantine with Christianity,
the edict of 321 enforcing the observance of the Day of the Sun. Nor can
it be traced further back than Licinianus, bishop of Carthage in the sixth
_ century after Christ, who is the first cleric to mention it with reprobation.*
There are, however, sound reasons for the opinion that it originated in the
West, not in the East as some orientalists have maintained, and it may
1 “Himmelsbriefe” and “ Weitere Beobachtungen zu den Himmelsbriefen”’ republished
in A. Dieterich, Kleine Schriften (1911), pp. 234-251.
? Pausanias, x, 38, 13.
3 Juvenal, Sat., xi, 27.
‘0. Weinreich, ‘‘Antike Himmelsbriefe,” Archiv fiir Religi } haft, X (1907),
pp. 566-567.
5 This is evidently the line which is taken in R. Stiibe, Der Himmelsbrief. Ein Beitrag
zur allgemeinen Religionsgeschichte, my acquaintance with which is limited to the notice in
Archiv f. Rel. Wiss., XX (1920-21), 475.
* Migne, Patrologia Latina, LX11I, 699.
i)
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74 Notes
well have had its birth in Spain or southern Gaul,! perhaps in the lifetime
of Licinianus. For that it can be much earlier I am inclined to doubt.
The Sunday Epistle, it will be remembered, purports to be a copy of a docu-
ment which was written by the hand of Christ Himself in His own blood
or in letters of gold and miraculously descended from Heaven to earth.
Its contents consist of a series of injunctions, reinforced by menaces for the
disobedient, inculcating the strict observance of the holiness of Sunday.
Now I am inclined to think that the original purpose of its invention was
that of its ostensible content, viz. to provide supernatural sanction for in-
sisting upon the observance of the Fourth Commandment, and that in
this sense it does come into the category of apocalyptic books. So far as
it goes, I cannot trace any but a doctrinal purpose in the allusion of Licini-
anus. Had the original intention been to construct a magical charm, such
as the Sunday Epistle subsequently became, we should have had, not a
homily upon Sabbatarianism, but a document with affinities to the magical
papyri or of the nature of its imitation, the Letter of Pope Leo, which we
must presently discuss; a collection, that is to say a magical formulae, ex-
plicitly relevant to the purpose for which the Letter was magically used.
But its secondary character as a magical talisman must have developed
very soon after its promulgation, which therefore is not likely to have been
far removed from the date of the letter of Licinianus.
For actually its supernatural character as an authentic letter of Christ
eclipsed its ostensible purport in popular imagination and by a process
familiar enough, as for example in the magical use of Pater Nosters, it be-
came a specific for ends wholly irrelevant to its verbal content. It affords,
indeed, an appalling instance of the longevity of superstitious nonsense.
Every country in Europe has provided examples, which range from the
sixth century after Christ to the twentieth, and it is widely distributed
throughout Eastern Christianity.2 Its primary efficacy would appear to
consist in conferring invulnerability, but it is also held to facilitate child-
birth, and may be used for to protect home and property, for which pur-
pose it is often inserted under the roof of the house.
1 P. H. Delehaye, “Note sur la légende de la lettre du Christ tombée du Ciel,” Bulletin
de la Classe des Lettres, Academie Royale de Belgique (1899), pp. 207-213, R. Priebsch, “Quelle
und Abfassungszeit der Sonntags—Epistel in der Irischen ‘Céin Domnaig,’”” Modern Language
Review, II (1907), 138-154.
2 The best summary of its distribution is in Delehaye, op. cit. The mass of material which
Professor R. Priebsch is known to have collected still remains unpublished. In addition to
the paper of his which has already been cited, reference may be made to his “The Chief
Sources of Some Anglo-Saxon Homilies,” Otia Merseiana, I (1899), 129-147. For the use
of the Letter in the Franco-Prussian War, the German-Danish War of 1861, and during the
Boxer expedition, see Dieterich’s two papers. I have been told verbally of copies being found
upon the bodies of German soldiers in the recent European War.
|
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Notes 75
Delehaye is certainly right in insisting upon the essential! difference of
the Correspondence of Christ with Abgarus of Edessa, a forgery already
current in the time of Eusebius, from our document which was written by
Christ after His ascension and miraculously sent down from Heaven to
earth.’ But it is interesting to notice that the text of the Letter to Abgarus
is printed together with the Sunday Epistle in one of the more recent
English broadsides, while its independent use as a magical talisman is not
unknown to popular practice.? This is merely another example of the ten-
dency to turn the holiness of a supernatural document to magical uses
quite irrelevant to its content.
Now the characteristics of the modern German specimens of the Sunday
Epistle suggest to me two small points, which may be of interest. The
most striking feature of the mediaeval versions is, upon the whole, their
fidelity to tradition. A comparison of the prologues of four examples from
different countries and ranging in date from the eighth to the fourteenth
centuries revealed but minor variations, mainly matters of the spelling of
proper names. That all eventually went back to a common original it was
impossible to doubt. The prologue usually tells how the Letter descended
from Heaven at Jerusalem at the Gate Effrem or at the Sepulchre of St
Peter at Rome, or, by a combination well established by the eighth century
and followed in all the four versions above mentioned, it descended at
Jerusalem and after passing through various hands was magically trans-
ported by an angel, usually the archangel Michael, to Rome.*
The accurate preservation of the traditional form was not promoted
by the invention of printing and by the the wider circulation of the charm
among a more numerous and less cultivated clientéle. The modern ex-
amples tend to differ more widely than the mediaeval from the original
model, and the German specimens suggest to me that it is probable that
investigation would show them to fall into a series of groups, each descend-
ing from its own immediate parent, a debased version of the original. For
the German documents clearly go back to a single and not very ancient
1 Delehaye, op. cit., p. 172. It may also be noticed that the Devil’s Letters discussed by
Dieterich, op. cit., pp. 234-251, have little to do with out magical recipe. The Devil’s Letter
appears in fact to have been a literary form which became popular with satirists in the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries. See Delehaye, op. cit., p. 173.
2 Ibid., p. 218, W. Garmon Jones, “‘A Welsh Sunday Epistle,” Miscellany presented to
J. M. Mackay (Liverpool, 1914), pp. 233, 237.
* A quite different prologue, though later than the received version, has a wide distribu-
tion. Here the Letter was found under a stone inscribed with the words “Blessed shall he be
that shall turn me over.” The stone, however, resisted all efforts until the bishop, or alter-
natively a little child, moved it with ease and discovered the Letter. For English and Welsh
specimens see Jones, op. cit., pp. 238, 241, Belgian, Delehaye, op. cit., p. 194, Greek, Delehaye,
op. cit., p. 198.
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in
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ch
to
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se
he
=
on
76 Notes
original. They agree in dating the miraculous appearance of the Letter in
the eighteenth century (1728, 1729 or 1791) and locate its descent in Hol-
stein. According to one version, it first appeared floating in the air in
1724, but whenever anyone tried to capture it, it flew up and eluded his
grasp, until at length in 1791 it yielded itself to an altruist, who wished to
possess it only to copy it out for the benefit of others.’
The other noticeable feature of the modern German versions is a
marked tendency for the original content of the letter, the tract upon
Sunday observance, to diminish in importance. This homily, indeed, has
no explicit bearing upon the purpose for which the Letter is used. But it
is its magical efficacy not its recommendations about the Fourth Command-
ment which interests its users. Consequently there has been a tendency
to incorporate in the document a number of other magical recipes to
strengthen its efficacy. Thus three quite extraneous charms are usually
included in the modern German examples,? while the text upon Sunday
observance has dwindled to two or three lines. These modern examples,
therefore, have degenerated into a collection of magical recipes explicitly
dealing with the magical purpose of the charm, a type of document which,
as I have ventured to suggest, we should have had in the first place had
the Sunday Epistle been deliberately constructed for the purpose for
which it has been used. In fact this feature of its degenerate specimens is
to my mind a strong confirmation of the view that its original motive was
doctrinal, its magical use secondary.
Further confirmation may perhaps be found in the character of the
Letter of Pope Leo. To specimens of this imitation of the Sunday Epistle
allusion is made by scholars who have dealt with this topic, but none of
them seem to have noticed the essentially different character of its con-
tents. In 1452 a priest at Halle, with some difficulty, induced a good
woman to allow him to destroy, as being a damnable superstition, a copy
of the Letter of Christ which had fallen from Heaven and had been sent
1 For the modern German versions see the papers of Dieterich. A ‘snowball’ clause, it
may be remarked, is one of the normal features of the document. Thus to the narration of the
dire consequences of scepticism about the authenticity of the document, the Welsh Letter
adds ‘‘anyone who writes this with his own hand without imparting it to others shall be ac-
cursed.” Jones, op. cit., p. 242.
2 1. A narrative charm for invulnerability and to stop hemorrhage; the story of the
Count whose executioner was unable to cut off the head of the condemned steward because
he carried a paper inscribed with letters of the alphabet, which are symbolically connected
with the wounds of Christ. 2. A ‘staying’ charm; ‘‘as Christ stood still upon the Garden of
Olives, so shall all fire-arms stand still,” ete. This concludes with the pleasant testimonium
**whoever will not believe my words, let him hang this letter on a dog’s neck and shoot him,
and he will see that I have spoken the truth.” 3. A rhymed spell to secure immunity from
bullets, whether of gold, silver or lead, in virtue of the Blood of Jesus.
Notes 77
by Pope Leo to Charlemagne. This she had been in the habit of wearing
round her neck to obtain immunity from being drowned by water or
wounded by the sword.! Swiss versions belonging to the fifteenth and
eighteenth centuries are noticed by Dieterich ? and a German letter printed
in Oldenbourg in 1849 is clearly of the same type. This last begins: —
“This prayer was found on the grave of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the year
785 and was sent by the Pope to Kaiser Karl as he went forth to war and
sent to St Michael in France, where it is to be found printed with won-
drous beauty in letters of gold.”* In the seventeenth century Reginald
Scot notices the use of Pope Leo’s Letter as a charm:‘ “This is as true a
copie of the holie writing, that was brought downe from heauen by an
angell to S. Leo pope of Rome; & he did bid him take it to king Charles,
when he went to the battell at Ronceuall. And the angell said, that what
man or woman beareth this writing about them with good deuotion, and
saith euerie daie three Pater nosters, three Aues, and one Creede, shall not
that daie be ouercome of his enemies, either bodilie or ghostlie; neither
shalbe robbed or slaine of theeues, pestilence, thunder or lightening; neither
shall be hurt with fier or water, nor combred with spirits, neither shall
haue displeasure of lords or ladies: he shall not be condemned with false
witnesse, nor taken with fairies, or anie maneer of axes, nor yet with the
falling euill. Also, if a woman be in trauell, iaie this writing upon her
bellie, she shall haue easie deliuerance, and the child right shape and
christendome, and the mother purification of holy church, and all through
vertue of these holie names of Jesus Christ following.” (There follow
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew names or attributes of Christ, the names of the
Three Magi and the Four Evangelists.) The document continues: “The
epistle of S. Sauior, which pope Leo sent to King Charles, saieing, that
whosoeuer carrieth the same about him, or in what daie so ever he shall
read it, or shall see it, he shall not be killed with anie iron toole, nor be
burned with fier, nor be drowned with water, neither anie euill man or
other creature maie hurt him.” Then follows the charm proper which
consists of a series of affirmations of the virtues of the cross separated
from each other by crosses. “‘The crosse of Christ is a wonderfull defence
*k the crosse of Christ be alwaies with me,” and so on.
In all the copies of Pope Leo’s Letter which are known to me the charm
itself consists of texts or pious ejaculations or the holy names used as
magical formulae. Naturally these show a tendency to considerable varia-
tion in detail though the constant appearance of the list of the attributes
and names of Christ and the names of the Three Kings points to the dis-
1 Dieterich, op. cit., p. 247. 2 Op. cit., p. 248.
3 Delehaye, op. cit., p. 193.
4 Reginald Scot, Discoveries of Witchcraft, 1584, Booke xii, chap. ix.
in
in i
is i
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ly
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ly
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78 Notes
crepancies being no more than the inevitable alterations which time and
circumstance are bound to produce in a traditional document in vulgar
circulation.
But the essential features which mark the Letter of Pope Leo as a dis-
tinct secondary imitation or derivative of the main type are that it con-
tains no allusion at all to the Fourth Commandment and its contents are
not in fact cast in the form of a letter but consist simply of a magical
formula.
W. R.
University of Liverpool.
SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE BUSILIS; ITALIAN BUSILLIS
Tue odd word busilis is of frequent occurrence in the Spanish classics and
in modern colloquial speech, with the meanings, “difficulty,” “knotty
problem.” The phrase Aqué estd el busilis means “Here is the rub.” Like
definitions are found in Italian and Portuguese dictionaries.
Most lexicographers agree that the word goes back to a story, which
A. Hoare relates in his Italian Dictionary (s. v.):
The story goes that an ignorant clerical student, reading in the breviary, came
to In die at the foot of a page, followed by bus illis at the top of the next
making up the phrase In diebus illis ‘in the days.’ It did not occur to him that
diebus was one word, and though he thought he saw the meaning of In die, viz.,
India, he could make nothing of bus illis, which accordingly became a cant term
for difficulty, esp. in the phrase Qui sta il busillis, ‘here lies the difficulty.’ !
Early in the seventeenth century Gonzalo Correas had told the story
as follows:
Bien vulgar es el busilis, aunque salié, o se fingié salir, de uno que examinaban
para érdenes, el cual dudé en declarar In diebus illis, y dijo: “‘Indiae, las Indias:
el busillis, no entiendo.”’ ?
Manzoni places the word in the mouth of a Spanish character in I pro-
messi sposi, and & propos of this the late Alfred Morel-Fatio has the follow-
ing to say:
1 Hoare mentions no source. He probably took the tale from O. Pianigiani’s Vocabulario
Etimologico della lengua Italiana, Rome-Milan, 1907. The latter, as well as other lexicographers
who use the story, probably took it from the Spanish Diccionario de autoridades (Madrid,
1726), of which more below. F. Solano Constancio in his Novo Diccionario Critico e Etymologico
da Lingua Portugueza (Paris, 1856) gives a similar version of the story, which he doubts, and
proposes a wild etymology from the Greek: é? plus oaos.
2 G. Correas, Vocabulario de refranes (Madrid, Tip. de Revisita de Archivos, 1924), pp.
17, 18.
= :
E
Notes 79
Sur busilis, il y a ceci 4 remarquer. Manzoni donne au mot sa forme espagnole,
Vitalien disant busillis ou busilli, L’étymologie en a été indiquée par le Diccionario
de autoridades (1726) et c’est une plaisanterie. Un lourdaud a qui l’on demandait
de traduire la phrase latine in diebus illis, répondit: “‘in die, dans le jour (ou d’aprés
une autre version, Indie, les Indes), quant a bus illis, je ne sais ce que cela signifie.”’
De la busillis s’est dit plaisament pour le point délicat ou difficile: en Italie d’abord
ou en Espagne? On ne saurait le décider shrement. Un auteur italien de la fin du
xvii? siécle, Anton Matia Salvini, citant ces deux vers d’un sonnet de Burchiello:
Pirramo s’invaghi d’un fusseragnuolo
A pie del moro bianco in diebus illis,
remarque ce qui suit: “‘Di qui é nato il dire d’una cosa d’importanza o d’un punto
forte: Questo é il busillis.” Le passage cité de Burchiello ne prouve pas qu’au
xvi* siécle déja on efit fait en Italie la plaisanterie en question. D’autre part le
bus illis, transcrit 4 l’espagnole busilis, se trouve dans le seconde partie du Don
Quichotte (1615) et Quevedo en parle dans le Cuento de los cuentos (1626). Manzoni
savait sans doute par Cervantes que le mot était aussi espagnole qu’italien et c’est
pourquoi il l’a mis avec a propos dans la bouche de Ferrer.*
The story lying back of this word apparently originated in neither
Spain nor Italy, but in England. In reading Mr Beeson’s Primer of Medie-
val Latin, I note what is probably the primitive version of the tale, in the
Gemma ecclesiastica of Giraldus of Barri (Cambrensis), who states that he
had it from John of Cornwall. The latter flourished ca. 1170,? and the writ-
ings of Giraldus date from the latter years of the twelfth and the beginning
of the thirteenth. Giraldus was one of the first to indulge in the sport of
collecting and reporting student “howlers,” an amusement in which Dean
Inge follows him at the present day. Giraldus’ version of the story with
which we are concerned is as follows:
Item examplum de illo qui quaesivit a magistro Iohanne Cornubiensi quis esset
“busillis” putabat enim proprium nomen regis vel alicuius magni veri fuisse. In-
terroganti autem magistro Iohanni ubinam hoc et in qua scriptura inveniretur,
respondit quoniam “‘in missali”; et currens propter librum suum ostendit ei in
fine columnae paginae unius scriptum “‘in die,” in principio vero alterius columnae
“bus illis,” quod recte distinctum facit “in diebus illis.” *
This story, bearing the earmarks of truth rather than of invention,
must have been frequently copied, and was doubtless told and retold in
most of the university centres of Europe. Many missing links remain to
be supplied to account for its popularity in Spain and Italy. Romance
1 Morel-Fatio, L’espagnol de Manzoni, Etudes sur V Espagne (Paris, 1904), III, 383-4.
The various commentators on Cervantes and Quevedo add nothing essential to the above.
See also note by Rodriguez Marin, Don Quijote de la Mancha (ed. “Clasicos Castellanos,”
Madrid, 1913), V, 150; also Edicién Critica (Madrid, 1916), V, 405; and Cortején ed.
(Madrid, 1911), p. $77.
2 G. Gréber’s Grundriss d. roman. philol. Tl, 1, 207.
* C. H. Beeson, A Primer of Medieval Latin (Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1925), p. 270.
{
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re
al
it
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ch
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ry
w-
hers
irid,
and
,
80 Notes
scholars will be surprised to learn of the tale’s antiquity, and Classic scholars
will note with interest that the blunder of a twelfth-century English dunce
has supplied the lexicography of three of the nations of southern Europe
with a word which still lives in popular speech.
G. T. Nortuup,
University of Chicago.
A TWELFTH-CENTURY EXULTET ROLL AT TROJA
tiques attached to his L’art dans I’Italie Méridionale! M. Emile Bertaux
lists under the number 13 an Exultet roll which he describes briefly as
“zit? siécle. Provenance inconnue. Original perdu. Calque ala Bibl. Nat. de
Naples.” Following his custom in these comparative tables, Bertaux gives
very diminutive line drawings of the miniatures (in this manuscript fifteen
in number), while in his text he gives this brief description:
La Bibliothéque Nationale de Naples posséde des calques d’un Exultet, dont
la trace est perdue et l’origine inconnue (no. 13). Les calques de cet Exultet perdu
sont réunis avec des calques fort soignés de quelques miniatures des Exultet de
Bari et de Salerne, dans un recueil factice qui porte, au département des Manuscrits,
la cote I B 49. Ce recueil contient encore sept calques d’aprés les miniatures d’ un
autre Exultet perdu, sur lequel étaient représentés deux princes lombards, comme
ceux qui ont regné conjointement au xi‘ siecle 4 Capoue ou 4 Benevent. Le volume
provient de la Bibliothéque de San Domenico. Les quelques annotations manuscrites
qui accompagnent les calques paraissent remonter au commencement du xix siécle.
Ce recueil a pu étré formé par R. Guarini, le premier editeur de |’ Exultet de Mira-
bella-Eclano. D’aprés le costume d’un évéque qui porte la mitre 4 deux cornes,
comme Benoit, évéque de Fondi, en 1115, ce manuscrit appartenait au xij¢ siecle.
Il est remarquable surtout par l’abondance des images liturgiques et par la singu-
larité énigmatique de certain traductions du texte par image. La lumiére de Dieu,
rayonnant sur le monde, est devenue un ange porte-flambeau devant lequel tombe
a la renverse une figurine toute nue, qui personnifie les ténébres. Une procession de
petits personnages, groupés deux a deux dans les attitudes peu expressives, est censée
rendre mot & mot le passage qui décrit les effets de cette nuit de la Résurrection,
nuit de gloire et de paix, qui arréte les discordes et courbe le front des puissants.
Toute cette iconographie est aussi désordonnée que l’avait été, au siécle précédent,
la composition des images qui défilent sur les parchemins de Gaete comme des
cauchemars des sauvages. II est manifeste que l’enlumineur de |’ Exultet connu par
les calques de Naples, comme |’ enlumineur du rouleau de Sorrente, ignorait com-
plétement les progrés techniques et les iconographiques réalisés, vers la fin du xi‘
siécle, par les miniaturistes du Mont-Cassin.?
Although he visited the town of Troja in Apulia and devoted several
pages of his book to the Cathedral and the sculptures in stone and bronze
1 L’art dans U' Italie Méridionale. Tome I: De la fin de Empire Roman @ la Conquéte de
Charles d’ Anjou (Paris, 1904). 2? Bertaux, op. cit., p. 230.
In the Iconographie Comparée des rouleaux de Exultet tableaux synop-
|
€
lk
:
rs
Notes 81
to be seen there, M. Bertaux was apparently unaware of the fact that in the
Chapter Library at Troja there were three Exultet rolls preserved, and
that one of these was the “lost original” of the Naples copy. Professor
A. Kingsley Porter in his article, “Wreckage from a Tour in Apulia,” in the
Mélanges Schlumberger ' mentions the three manuscripts. He suggests that
the reluctance of the canons to show their possessions may account for
M. Bertaux’s failure to see these rolls and include them in his book.
I have never had the opportunity to examine either the Troja manu-
scripts or the Naples copy and so am working only on the basis of M. Ber-
taux’s drawings, the lithographic publication of one of the rolls by Latil 2
and a number of photographs taken by Mr Porter. Without access to the
manuscripts it is, of course, impossible to solve the problem definitely, but
this note is published in the hope that it may simplify the task for other
students of this school of illumination.
The study of these rolls is seriously complicated by two important
facts: there is much repainting, and the rolls are at present patched.
Latil’s reproductions are not photographs but lithographs and, since they
are unaccompanied by any explanatory text or any facsimiles of the
script, it is difficult to determine the exact condition of the miniatures
which he publishes. Moreover, he has in many cases grouped two or three
miniatures on one page, omitting the intervening text, without making
note of this license. To add to the sum of the difficulties he has published
only one of the Troja rolls, and that incompletely. By means of Mr Porter’s
seventeen photographs it is possible to verify certain of Latil’s lithographs,
supply several missing scenes in the roll which is published, and obtain
at least a partial idea of the other two rolls.
According to M. Bertaux’s line drawings in his comparative iconograph-
ical tables there are fifteen miniatures in the Naples copy of the lost twelfth-
century Exultet. Now these fifteen miniatures are reproduced exactly from
the most elaborate and latest Exultet roll of Troja, and they are of such
unusual character that there seems no doubt that we have here the lost
original.
The text of the roll is the Vulgate Exultet.* The first miniature, occur-
ring at the text “‘ Et aeterni regis splendore lustrata totius orbis se sentiat ami-
sisse caliginem,”’ described as “la lumiére de Dieu, rayonnant sur le monde,
est devenue un ange porte-flambeau devant lequel tombe a la renverse
* Mélanges offerts 4 M. Gustave Schlumberger (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner,
1924), pp. 408-415.
* Agostino Maria Latil, Le Miniature nei Rotoli dell’ Exultet Documenti per la storia della
miniatura in Italia (Monte Cassino, 1899).
* L. Duchesne, Christian Worship, its Origin and Evolution, tr. M. L. McClure (5th ed.,
London: S. P. C. K., 1928), pp. 254-56.
|
|
ux
as
de
ves
2en
ont
rdu
, de
rits,
un a
ame
ume
rites
cle.
lira-
nes,
ecle.
Jieu,
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mn de
nsée
tion,
ants. Pe
dent,
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par
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veral
“onze
de
82 Notes
une figurine toute nue, qui personnifie les ténébres,”’! is matched in the
Troja facsimiles of Latil (Tav. 15). It is of unusual literalness for an Exultet
roll and bears no relation to the miniatures of any of the other rolls.
The other fourteen miniatures are obviously copies of the Troja roll
and may be most easily described by references to the point of the text at
which they occur: for purposes of comparison the plate numbers in Latil’s
publication are added.
Laetetur et mater Ecclesia: Side view of a basilica: under an arch, left,
an ambo and a paschal candle; two clerics standing near. The nave of
three bays is crowded with lay folk. A tower of the western facade is at
the right. Latil, Troja, Tav. 8.
Quapropter adstantibus vobis: A deacon in an ambo with paschal candle,
left; congregation, centre and right. There is no architectural background
as in the preceding miniature. Latil, Troja, Tav. 9
Patrem filiumque eius unigenitum: Christ on the cross, center. To the
left, an angel and St Mary, representing the Church, holding a chalice |
into which flows blood from the spear wound; to the right, an angel drives
away a female figure representing the Synagogue. Latil, Troja, Tav. 14.
Haec nox est in qua destructis vinculis mortis Christus ab inferis victor
ascendit: Apparently a representation of the Harrowing of Hell, with very
curious iconography. In the centre, an angel leads out Adam and Eve,
left, from a cave-like hell: to the right stand three saints, two wearing the §
cross of martyrdom, who typify the souls of the blessed. That this is a
representation of the Harrowing of Hell seems established not only by the
text which it illustrates, but also by the similarity of hell in this miniature
and in the representation of Christ and the broken gates of Hades in the J
Troja original, a miniature not reproduced in this copy. The artist at Troja |
with his curious and bizarre taste has substituted the angel for Christ as the
deliverer of our first parents. Latil, Troja, Tav. 13.
O beata nox: Two standing figures, left, and five standing figures, right,
rejoicing and jubilating. Latil, Troja, Tav. 16.
Same text. Seven figures, left and centre, embracing and rejoicing;
right, a dejected crowned figure with bowed head sits on a throne. Latil,
Troja, Tav. 16. Bertaux, in describing these remarkably literal interpre-
tations of the text, says,? “Une procession de petits personnages, groupé |
deux 4 deux dans les attitudes peu expressives, est censée rendre mot a mot ©
le passage qui décrit les effets de cette nuit de la Résurrection, nuit de gloire ©
et de paix, qui arréte les discordes et courbe le front des puissants.” +
In huius igitur noctis gratia: Left, three clerics around a paschal candle;
right, a church with various towers and turrets in the background. Latil, ~
Troja, Tav. 16.
1 Bertaux, op. cit., p. 230. 2 Ibid.
|
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FROM Napies, Brat. Naz. I B 49
{ Enlarged from Bertauz )
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( By permission of Miss Avery)
the
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—
ives
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Latil,
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:
Notes 83
Same text. Centre, a paschal candle; left, two priests and a deacon
lighting the candle; right, three deacons. Latil, Troja, Tav. 17.
Apis caeteris: Left, a tree and flowers; bees circulating about and flying
toward a seven story hive, right. Latil, Troja, Tav. 17.
Sicut sancta concepit virgo Maria: Centre, an angel; right, Mary seated
in the arched doorway of a house. Latil, Troja, Tav. 18.
Oramus te, Domine ut cereus iste: Centre, a deacon with raised hands;
left, a group of five clerics; right, a group of six lay folk. Latil, Troja,
Tav. 20.
Same text. Centre, a paschal candle; left, two clerics holding candles
in candlesticks, and one holding the end of an Exultet roll which is being
used by a deacon in an ambo, right. Latil, Troja, Tav. 19.
Precamur ergo te: Left, a seated bishop wearing a double-horned mitre
and holding a pastoral staff; centre, a seated pope, crowned, holding an
open book; right, three standing clerics. Latil, Troja, Tav. 21.
M. Bertaux, in describing the Naples copy, adds that it is combined
with copies of certain miniatures of the Bari and Salerno rolls as well as
with seven copies of the miniatures of another lost Exultet, in which two
Lombard princes are represented, like those who reigned conjointly in the
eleventh century at Capua or Beneventum. Unfortunately he gives no
drawings of these other miniatures, but, from the representation of the two
princes, I believe that it is possible to identify the second lost Exultet with
another Troja roll, the earliest of the three. This manuscript, which is
without decorative borders and contains the Vetus Itala text of the Ex-
ultet,! is illustrated at the text “‘subdiaconibus cunctoque clero uel plebe”’ by
a representation of Christ with cruciform halo, standing on a pedestal,
with each hand placed on the head of a prince, one on the right and one
on the left, who incline in a reverential fashion. Thus the derivation of
the Naples copy from Troja is confirmed by this additional detail.
In addition to the fifteen miniatures which are reproduced in the Naples
copy, there are a number of others in the principal Troja Exultet but, since
they have no bearing upon the question of the relationship of the two manu-
scripts and since it is difficult to determine their exact order from the re-
productions available and since it seems very probable that several of
them, whose subjects are not from the common iconographic repertory of
the Exultet rolls, have been patched into the roll, a description of them
would be of little value.
The third Troja Exultet roll contains the Vetus Itala text and is quite
closely related to the second roll. The script of the three rolls, in all cases
Beneventan, is not of such a striking and distinctive character as to assist
1 Duchesne, op. cit., pp. 537-539.
Wad
84 Notes
in the dating of these manuscripts and the art does not allow a precise date
to be given for any one of them. The two shorter rolls with the Vetus
Itala text obviously belong in the eleventh century, and the later Vulgate
roll, which was copied in the Naples manuscript, is clearly the work of the
twelfth century, probably from the first quarter. Beyond this general
placing, however, I am unable to discover more definite dates.
Nore. Since the writing of this note I have learned that Miss Myrtilla
Avery of Wellesley College, who has made an extensive study of Exultets,
has reached independently the same conclusion about the relation of the
principal Troja roll and the Naples copy and has found that the two
smaller rolls, with the Vetus Itala text, have been sewed together. Miss
Avery visited Troja recently and obtained a complete set of photographs
of the three manuscripts. I am greatly indebted to her for allowing me to
reproduce the Crucifixion of the principal roll from her photographs.
W. M. Jr,
Cambridge, Mass.
REVIEWS
Francois-L. Gansnor, Etude sur les ministeriales en Flandre et en Lotharingie. Mémoire
couronné par |’Académie royale de Belgique. Bruxelles: Maurice Lamertin, 1926.
456 pages.
In the first part of this work M. Ganshof has synthesized all previous re-
search into the history and nature of the ministeriales; in the second, in
which new ground is broken, he has examined the history of the institution
in German Lorraine, Flanders and Brabant. The point of departure of all
study of this subject must begin with A. Fiirth’s Die Ministerialen (Cologne,
1836), whose conclusions M. Ganshof largely sustains. He has as little
respect for the “heterodox” opinion of Caro, Wittich, Oppermann and
Heck as Keutgen has, which is saying much.
The ministeriales were peculiarly an evolution of German feudalism.
Only sporadic traces of them can be found in France in the Ile-de-France,
Normandy and Anjou (pp. 74-78), and see my article on “German Feudal-
ism” in American Historical Review, XXVIII (1922-23), 464-74. M.
Ganshof makes the claim — in which he has the support of other scholars —
that there is no filiation between the ministeriales of Carolingian times
and those officials of the same name in the feudal period (pp. 31-32). Yet
I confess to skepticism in this matter. In the dissolution of the Frankish
Empire in the ninth century the greater Carolingian institutions (e.g., the
missi dominici) perished. But one finds curious traces, in the institutions
of the tenth and eleventh centuries, of things which seem to be fragmentary
survivals of the Carolingian régime. Apparently the débris of Carolingian
government was swept away by the strong current of feudalism to lodge
upon the bank and shoal of a later time.
The earliest occurrence of the term ministerialis in the feudal age is
found in a diploma of the emperor Henry II (1002-24) in the first quarter
of the eleventh century, though it is admitted that the institution was then
already a well developed one. But how far back may it be traced? The
earliest instance cited by M. Ganshof is of 922-25, from Ekkehard of St
Gall (p. 39). For, with Dietrich Schaefer, Keutgen, and Hegel he rejects
(p. 41, note 8) the celebrated “agrarii milites” of Henry I, mentioned by
Widukind, i, 35. Schaefer thought these to have been royal vassals;
Keutgen once agreed with him but changed his mind and concluded with
Hagel that freemen were meant. In the article alluded to above I have
advanced the argument (p. 455) that these “agrarii milites” were servitors
of Henry I as duke of Saxony and not as king. The remains of the Caro-
lingian fise in Saxony were not great in the tenth century.
85
q
us
i
tte
he
lla
ts
hi
he
wo
yhs
to
a
a
ag
86 Reviews
Despite M. Ganshof’s conclusion, that there is no historical connection
between the Carolingian ministeriales and those of the feudal period, I
cannot help thinking that the gap is not so wide as believed. For ina letter
of Alcuin, Ep. 174, ed. Jaffe, VI, 623, we find mention of “‘ gregarios, id est
ignobiles milites.”” These are certainly different from the servile ministeri-
ales mentioned in the Capitulare de villis and Hincmar’s treatise on the
court in the ninth century, De ordine palatii. I am convinced of the affinity
between these and Widukind’s “‘agrarii milites” as much as of the affinity
between the latter and Wipo’s “milites gregarii” [Vita Chuomradi ii, 4
(a.p. 1024)]. There is striking evidence of the employment of armed ser-
vitors in a military capacity in the Annales Fuldenses, in 880, where we
are told that in a battle with the Norsemen who had invaded the lower
Rhinelands, “‘eighteen satellites regis” fell. The names of the fallen, which
are given, clearly indicate their base origin. We have at least these two
evidences from Alcuin and the Annals of Fulda to bridge the gap between
Charlemagne and the Saxon dynasty — evidence which, it seems to me,
bears out the argument that Henry I’s “‘agrarii milites” were also minis-
teriales.
M. Ganshof’s treatment of the field he has chosen for his own inde-
pendent researches is very complete. He has devoted 150 pages to Brabant,
the principality of Liége, Luxembourg and the county of Holland; 22 to
Lothringen, and 39 to Flanders. An alphabetical table lists every known
instance by name of person and place in Flanders and Lothringen.
By the twelfth century the most ambitious ministeriales had blossomed
into the knightly and noble class, and the lowly origin of these parvenus
had become obscured or forgotten. Occasionally, however, and usually
with tragic consequences, reminiscence of such base origin flashed out.
The murder of Charles the Good of Flanders in 1127 was perpetrated by
a family of servile origin which claimed nobility, and against whose claims
the count had instituted court procedure of investigation. A like notorious
case arose in 1188 in Hainaut — the procés de Robert de Beaurain, a cause
celébre of the epoch, which Gislebert of Monshas graphically related.
JAMES WESTFALL THOMPSON,
The University of Chicago.
Tre Camprivce Meprevat History, edited by J. R. Tanner, C. W. Previté-Orton, and
Z. N. Brooke: Volume V, Contest of Empire and Papacy, New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1926.
The title, Contest of Empire and Papacy, given to the fifth volume of
The Cambridge Medieval History, warns us that the period from 1050 to
1200 will be treated from the conventional standpoint and in the tradi-
tional manner. This impression is borne out by the division into chapters:
.
t
c
Sl
Reviews 87
the reform of the church, Gregory VII, Germany under Henry IV and
Henry V, the Normans in south Italy and Sicily, the Italian cities, Islam
in Syria and Egypt from 750 to 1100, the First Crusade, the Kingdom of
Jerusalem, the effects of the crusades, Germany from 1125 to 1152, Italy
during the same period, Barbarossa and Germany, Barbarossa and the
Lombard League, Henry VI, the Norman Conquest, England from 1087
to 1154, England under Henry II, France under Louis VI and Louis VII.
Thus there is rather too much of the old practice of pigeon-holing history
by reigns of kings, while one must protest vigorously against the division
of Europe into England, France, Germany, and Italy, — the speaking in
terms of modern nations, which seems an anachronism for the period under
consideration. The concluding chapters are more general in scope, dealing
with the communal movement, monastic orders, Roman and Canon law,
the schools, and philosophy. But one could wish that the entire volume
had been treated more in the spirit of an admirable sentence in the Intro-
duction: “‘We have to deal, then, with a period, on the one hand, of new
movements and new ideas — the appearance of the new monastic orders,
a renaissance of thought and learning, the rise of towns and the expansion of
commerce; on the other, of consolidation and centralisation — the organi-
sation of the monarchical government of the Church, the development
of monarchical institutions in the various countries of Europe, and, to give
direction and solidity to the whole, the revived study of Civil and Canon
Law.”
As in previous volumes, the chronological limits set are none too well
observed. Perhaps this is largely inevitable, yet one cannot but feel that
this volume is not the place for a discussion of the Breviary of Alaric and
early Germanic codes on the one hand, or of Bartolus and the influence of
Italian humanism on legal studies on the other hand. The discussion of
mediaeval schools is supposed to come down to 1300, but is actually largely
devoted to those before 900, giving a misleading impression so far as the
period of intellectual revival from 1050 to 1200 is concerned.
The names of German scholars continue to be noticeable by their ab-
sence from the list of contributors, and non-British authors of any sort are
few. Of the twenty-three chapters by seventeen contributors, two are by
Frenchmen and two by an Italian. Three chapters are by women.
The literary style and method of detailed presentation continue about
the same as in the previous volumes, — chiefly chronological narrative, —
clear and dignified in tone, but somewhat dry and heavy for the ordinary
reader. Interesting incidents and racy passages will be found, however, by
those who have the patience to look for them. The chapter on the rise of
the Italian cities by Previté-Orton contains many illuminating sentences
such as, at page 235, “The single-celled state of 1130 became the multiple-
yn
I
er
st
h
ty
we
rer
ch
en
ne,
le-
wo
ed
1us
ut.
ms
Dus =
Use
and
3
> of
) to a
adi
.
pee
a
88 Reviews
celled community of 1250.” Of the great Italian monastery of Farfa in
the tenth century we read, at page 5, “But there was little pretence of
theology or even piety; only the study of medicine was kept up, and that
included the useful knowledge of poisons, as abbot after abbot was to
learn.”
The “‘incredible estimates of the numbers of those who joined in the
First Crusade still given in modern histories of deserved repute,”’ are vigor-
ously questioned by Professor Stevenson, who assails the “pictorial num-
bers” of mediaeval chroniclers and would reduce them to a few thousand.
Yet at page 373 we find the following quotation from a letter of St Bernard
to Eugenius III concerning the Second Crusade, “Cities and castles are
emptied, and there is not left one man to seven women.” One fears that if
the same scepticism which Professor Stevenson applies to the numerical
figures in mediaeval chroniclers were extended to the rest of their content,
the portly volume before us for review would shrink to a narrow compass.
This is one argument for a greater attention to the past of thought and
culture, whose source-foundations are more solid.
It is good to have Mr Reade point out that “the belief, still extant in
some quarters, that the mediaeval understanding of Aristotle was hope-
lessly vitiated by faulty translations is unsupported by the facts”; and his
strictures upon the reputation of Roger Bacon are well taken. But we do
not see how he can say that Adelard of Bath’s “general outlook, however, is
reminiscent of what John of Salisbury imputes to Bernard of Chartres,” if
he has read the Questiones naturales and not merely the De eodem et diuerso.
And we wish that he had given reasons or authorities for his interesting
intimation that Alexander of Hales is not the author of the Summa which
bears his name. Why be so mysterious about it?
The value of the volume is enhanced by a chronological table (two-
sevenths of it is before 1050 or after 1200), nine maps, some of which are
in colors, sixty double-columned pages of Index, and over a hundred pages
of Bibliographies. To these last two features, none the less, we must take
some exception. I find no mention of the Dictatus in the index, although at
page 57 the recent establishing of Gregory VII’s authorship of it is pointed
out. For James of Venice the index refers only to page 808, although he
is earlier mentioned at page 331. To Burgundio of Pisa it gives no refer-
ence, although he is mentioned on page 808. Puzzling is the complete
omission of the word ‘Greek’ from the index. The bibliographies, too,
often seem weak upon the more recent literature of the subject and partic-
ularly upon the publications in outlandish countries such as Italy and the
United States of America. This same weakness sometimes affects the text
of the corresponding chapters.
Thus concerning mediaeval schools there is no mention of such an im-
eames = «=
—
99
Reviews 89
portant general work as Giuseppe Manacorda’s Storia della scuola in
Italia: il medio evo, 1914, 2 vols., to say nothing of the considerable mono-
graphic literature in French, German, and Italian on the mediaeval schools
of particular towns or regions. In the bibliography on mediaeval philosophy
the researches of Professor Haskins pass unnoted, although some of the
themes with which he has dealt are discussed in the text, where, too, how-
ever, he is not named. On the other hand, I can find nothing in the bibli-
ography about Mandonnet’s edition of the De quindecim problematibus of
Albertus Magnus, to which the text refers. The bibliography of Germany,
1125-1152, lists the works of A. L. Poole and H. Prutz on Henry the Lion,
but not Editha Gronen’s Die Machtpolitik Heinrichs des Léwen und sein
Gegensatz gegen das Kaisertum, 1919; or Ferdinand Giiterbock’s Die
Gelnhauser Urkunde und der Prozess Heinrichs des Liwen, 1920; while the
bibliography on Henry VI omits M. A. Pasculli’s Studio sulla congiura
contro Vimperatore Enrico VI, 1919. The bibliography on Canon law has
neither L. Wahrmund’s Quellen zur Geschichte des Rémisch-Kanonischen
Prozesses im Mittelalter, where various sources have been printed; nor
J. Petit’s Registre des causes civiles de Vofficialité épiscopale de Paris (1384-
1387), 1919; nor R. Génestal’s Le procés sur l'état de clere aux XIII’ et
XIV’ siécles, 1909. We look in vain in the bibliography on Italian cities for
Monfredi Palumbo’s I comuni meridionali, vol. I, 1910; F. Bruno di Tourna-
fort’s Le origini e lo svolgimento dell’ aggregazione sociale nel comune medie-
vale in Italia, 1906; A. Solmi’s Jl comune nella storia del diritto, 1922; or
§. Alvisi’s monograph on the commune of Imola in the twelfth century.
The bibliography on the communal movement, especially in France, is
perhaps as full as we should ask, but possibly in place of some of the older
works might have been noted such recent studies as Oriola’s Les consuls
de Perpignan, 1912; Villepelet’s history of Périgueux and its municipal
institutions to 1360, published in 1908; Gailliard’s Monographie de la com-
mune de Ressous-le-Long, 1905; Lenoir’s Histoire de la commune de Gérou-
ville, 1906; Clément-Simon’s Tulle avant... le consulat, 1908; Roland and
Lahaye’s Les communes namuroises, 1907; and Métin’s Communes du canton
dOrnans, 1913. The bibliography on Gregory VII includes neither Peitz’s
Das Original-register Gregors VII, 1911, although his researches are alluded
to in a foot-note to the text at page 57, nor E. Caspar’s Studien zum Register
Gregors VII in the Neues Archiv for 1913. W. Holtzmann’s article on the
eastern policy of the reforming papacy and the origin of the first crusade
in the Historische Vierteljahrschrift, Vol. XXII (1924), perhaps appeared
too recently for inclusion in the bibliography on the First Crusade.
But such omissions, which might be further multiplied, make one wonder
if this volume, impressive as it is in some respects, can be regarded as a full
and faithful reflection of the present state of European and American his-
ti
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90 Reviews
torical scholarship concerning the period in question. Certainly the great
renaissance of the twelfth century does not stand out as it should in a
volume devoted to the period from 1050 to 1200, while to treat of that time
without a single chapter on art is almost as bad as it would be to leave
Hamlet out of the play. Lynn THORNDIKE
Lynn Tuornoike, A Short History of Civilization. New York; F. S. Crofts & Co., 1926,
Pp. xiv +619.
THERE would seem to be a widespread and almost passionate interest in the
history of civilization in recent years. The gamut runs from H. G. Wells’
unscholarly effusion to the profound work of Oswald Spengler. This latest
contribution to the literature of the history of civilization is a readable
book, a synthesis of much scattered information and sometimes with
refreshing and suggestive ideas expressed, especially when the author draws
parallels between the past and the present. (See pp. 301, 304, 313, 353.)
The aim has been “to survey the past constructively.” This past (and here
we have Mr. Thorndike’s definition of civilization) consists of “man’s con-
structive achievement, those positive accomplishments in political and social
institutions, in art and industry, in science and thought, which we denote by
the collective word civilization” (p. 3). Apparently Mr Thorndike approves
Metternich’s famous dictum that ideas begin in the best heads and flow
down gradually to the masses. He believes in the aristocratic origin of
civilization. For civilization, he says, “is the product of our higher facul-
ties as exercised first by original and superior individuals and then accepted
or followed by a sufficient number of human beings to make it a social
fact” (p. 3). Civilization is not a constant, but a variable. There is no
gain without some loss. Every civilization represents both an advance
and a retrogression, having lost some of the good features of previous
civilizations.
The proportion of space allotted to each period-subject seems eccentric
in the case of certain epochs. Egypt and the Near East in antiquity is
given 55 pages; Classical civilization, 118; Ancient India and China, 47;
Byzantine, Persian and Mohammedan civilization only 21; Western Europe
in the Middle Ages, 82; Early Modern Times, 93; Recent Civilization, 96.
Perhaps it was deliberate self-denial on the author’s part, as a professional
mediaevalist, to compress a thousand years of mediaeval civilization into
much less space than he has given to that of Greece and Rome. But I
chiefly demur against the reduction of Byzantine, Persian and Arabic
civilization to a mere sketch.
As readers of SpecuLuM will naturally turn to the pages upon mediaeval
civilization, I shall confine this review to Book VI, which is divided into
4
4
§
1
1
Reviews 91
six chapters. (1) Western Europe in transition; (2) The European land
system and aristocracy; (3) The revival of town life; (4) Learning, educa-
tion and literature to the invention of printing; (5) Mediaeval art;
(6) Crusaders and Mongols.
Mr Thorndike finds “that time in the Middle Ages when western civil-
ization may be said to have made its new start” to be in the tenth century
(p. 297). His chief criterion for this judgment is that “‘in the tenth century
come our earliest recorded mediaeval instances of peasants attempting to
escape from serfdom,” although he cites other evidences like the cessation
of the Norse and Magyar invasions. But these latter were more negative
than positive evidences of recovery. In my judgment mediaeval Europe
hardly began to “find itself” (except in Saxon Germany) before the eleventh
century. Certainly this is true of the Church and of feudalism, the two
most potent and universal institutions of mediaeval civilization.
The best chapter in the book is chapter xxix, on mediaeval art, of
which Mr Thorndike eloquently says: “It can bid defiance to disparage-
ment. It has no seamy side; outside and inside it is equally honest, equally
beautiful. Its foundations are as solid as its aspirations are lofty” (p. 352).
But every one of these chapters suffers from too much condensation. In
the effort to be brief or simple the writer frequently has sacrificed too much.
For example, in the pages devoted to learning and education I can discover
no allusion to Alcuin. All that is said of St Francis is that he is an object
of “hero-worship . . . in some modern books” (p. 352). No reader without
a large knowledge of the subject derived from other works can possibly
understand the nature of either the feudal régime or the reverse of the coin,
manorialism. On page 310 one reads that “in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries there was a great emancipation movement among the peasan-
try,” but one looks in vain for an explanation of the reasons thereof. Few
students of mediaeval economic history will follow Mr Thorndike in the
opinion expressed on page 303 that “the Northmen . . . appear to have
aroused western Christendom from a state of agricultural lethargy and
economic isolation.” The economic recovery of western Europe, as M.
Pirenne has shown, was due to the overthrow of Mohammedan sea-power
in the western basin of the Mediterranean by the fleets of Pisa and Genoa
early in the eleventh century, which opened the Levant again to western
commerce. Similarly, Mr Thorndike errs in economic interpretation when
he ascribes the increase in the amount of the precious metals to mines “‘in
the region which we now call Alsace, Bohemia and Hungary” (p. 303).
The Bohemian ores in the Erzgebirge did not begin to become available
until the late twelfth century, nor those of Transylvania and the Zips
until later still. As for Alsace, it is news to me that mining was a local
industry. The great source of the precious metals in the epoch which is
at
ne
ve
26.
he
lis’
est ae
ble =
ws
3.)
ere
on-
‘ial
by
ves
ow
of
ul-
ted
no
nee
ous
tric
is
47; x
ope
96. 2
nal q
nto =.
it I
bic
val
nto
92 Reviews
dealt with was Thuringia, where the famous Rammelsberg mines first began
to be worked about 960. Mr Thorndike is “dubious if their (Frankish)
dominance was of much service to civilization” (p. 302). One wonders
what Saxony, Swabia, Bavaria, the Rhinelands, would have been in the
tenth century if there had been no Charlemagne. As to the preservation
of classical manuscripts, the genealogy of the oldest of such which we now
possess shows that most of them go back to Carolingian copies made at
Tours or Reichenau or Corbie or St Gall. The Carolingian renascence did
more for preservation of the classics than Mr Thorndike’s philosophy
dreams. On page 314 we read the statement that “the churchmen were
generally good landlords, and for a time their serfs seem to have been more
prosperous and better treated than others.” This is an ancient and widely
disseminated belief, which has been badly shattered by modern research.
A close scrutiny of the cartularies of the monasteries shows that serfs
on church lands were not better off than those on lay lands. There is even
ground to believe that as a whole their lot was worse. The Miracula of St
Benoit show frightful poverty, although this may have been an extreme
case. The fact that the Church exercised an empire over souls proves
nothing as to the economic condition of the peasantry on ecclesiastical
lands. The mediaeval church was the most conservative member of feudal
society in the matter of enfranchisement of slaves and manumission of
serfs. Most instances of general emancipation are by lay, not by ecclesias-
tical lords. Indeed, emancipation of slave or serf, unless compensation
were made for the loss entailed thereby, was forbidden by canon law.
On the whole the Church was opposed to emancipation and did its best to
protract serfdom. Luchaire’s opinion, than which hardly any can be higher,
was very adverse to the contention that church serfs were better off than
serfs on lay lands. This is also the conclusion of Paul Fournier, of Pollock
and Maitland, and of Vanderkindere in Belgium.
A selected bibliography concludes each chapter, and there is an index.
JaMEs WESTFALL THOMPSON,
The University of Chicago.
La Chanson de Roland, Oxford Version, Edition, Notes and Glossary by T. Atkinson Jenkins,
Professor of the History of the French Language, University of Chicago (Boston: D. C.
Heath, 1924), pp. cl, 378.
IN THE preparation of the present edition the Editor was actuated by the
desire “‘ that American students, beginners in Old French, might have the
complete poem at hand, edited to meet their needs.”’ This laudable desire
has long been shared by no few of those whose function it is to deal in the
class-room with the greatest of French epics and who have found them-
l
Se
Reviews 93
selves hampered by lack of text-book equipment. For the help which Pro-
fessor Jenkins has now brought them, they should certainly vote him
hearty thanks, and, let us say it at once, his disclaimer of high philological
purpose makes captious criticism of his achievement base ingratitude.How-
ever, his disclaimer is not to be taken too literally. He admits, with be-
coming modesty, that “ the work has developed somewhat in the making,”
and we are glad that it has done so, for we regard it as the product of a true
scholar who has envisaged all aspects of a very difficult task and has done
his best to cast the proper light upon them. But no deep student of me-
diaeval lore in general and of Old French and its literature in particular will
expect to find solved out of hand by Professor Jenkins the countless prob-
lems attaching to the Chanson de Roland; he will not be surprised to dis-
cover that some of the difficulties remain moot points, and he will feel free
to offer his own views respecting them. Of course this is what Professor
Jenkins would have him do.
Besides a text of the poem, the Editor has provided notes, an Introduc-
tion, a Bibliography, and a Glossary. The notes, we are glad to say, appear
in the appropriate place at the foot of each page of the text and not at the
end of the volume. The Introduction seems to leave untouched no essential
point that has attracted the attention of scholars since the Chanson de
Roland first became the subject of study by competent critics, and, like the
notes, it reveals the Editor’s own consideration of many a disputed matter.
After indicating that such a title as (o est de Charlemaigne et de Rollant
would be more fitting than simply Chanson de Roland, Professor Jenkins
gives an outline of the poem. Next he studies the author’s power of charac-
terization, his conscious poetic art, and the ideas and spirit that animate
him, for ali of which there is praise as just as it is discriminating. Coming
now to treat of the date of the document and the question of its authorship,
the Editor realizes that he is on debatable ground; but he faces issues
squarely. Even though we fail to accord him full assent, we must perforce
approve of the clearness and fullness of his exposition of his arguments. In
what remains of his Introduction he is chiefly concerned with the models
and materials that the poet may have utilized and with the diffusion of his
work as shown by the many early allusions to it, by imitations and adapta-
tions of it, and by the existing manuscripts of one or another form of it.
He concludes with a thorough-going account of the language and versifica-
tion. The Bibliography is made with due discrimination, and lists the
leading works and articles that appeared prior to 1924.
As the title makes clear, the Oxford Ms. is the basis of the text pre-
sented to us. But, unlike Professor Bédier, Gréber and Lerch, and following
the example of Stengel, Gautier, Miiller, Clédat, etc., he chooses to make
some corrections of his Ms. readings on the basis of evidence given by other
n
)
rs
n
w
at
id
re =
re
fs
St
1€
al
al
of
v.
to
un
ok
x.
ns
he
he
re
he =
2
ia
Reviews
94
forms of the poem, notably by the Ms. Venice IV, and naturally, also, on
the basis of internal evidence. We hope to find suggestions of similar
changes in Professor Bédier’s critical edition, when it appears.
To the 3998 lines of the Oxford Ms. Professor Jenkins adds the four lines
from other sources which practically all editors have accepted, and, besides,
nine other lines, so that the poem has for him 4011 lines. He abides, how-
ever, by the conventional numbering of the verses, and his last line figures
as 4002.
As the present occasion does not allow compass for the discussion of all
the questions to which the Introduction, text, notes, and Glossary might
profitably give rise, we shall attempt no exhaustive survey of them. The
following remarks touch on occasional matters and embody the views or
the doubts of one who is highly appreciative of the scholarly labors of Pro-
fessor Jenkins.
In the brief preface,the Editor justifies his use in the text of o for Old
French close o where the Anglo-Norman scribe of the Oxford Ms. often
(but not always) wrote u. ‘The Ms.,” he says, “ making no difference
between jor and jur, maior and maiur, aorer and aurer, I have chosen, for
pedagogical purposes, to write o uniformly: that there is any real loss in
authenticity cannot be seriously maintained, while the gains are such as
to be evident to any teacher. Similarly E. Hoepffner, in his recent edition
of the Lays of Marie de France, abandoned the western spelling of close 0,
as it seemed to him a needless obstacle for those who are not well versed
in Old French.” We commend the Editor’s use of o in the case indicated,
but we wish that he had gone farther and had abandoned other merely
scribal spellings as well, for they, too, are a “needless obstacle for those who
are not well versed in Old French.”’ In particular, we dislike the retention
of the unphonetic oe as indicating the O.Fr. result of the breaking of Latin
short o in an open, stressed syllable: instead of poet, estoet, voelt and the
like, we desire puet, estuet, vuelt, etc. The spelling oe never denoted a real
pronunciation here; certainly not that of the poet of the non-Baligant part
of the document, and probably not of him who wrote the rest of it. Of
course we applaud when Professor Jenkins (who follows Luquiens and
Miiller, and, we may add, Bédier) declares his intention of excluding “‘from
the Oxford Ms. (i.e., from his use of it) whatever may be due to copyists,”
and, therefore, not only in the assonance, but everywhere, we would eschew
spellings such as soiir (for setir), tenom (for tenons), foildre (for foldre), quens
(for cuens), and the many other forms which cannot have prevailed in the
“region of Paris, Sens, Chartres, Tours, Blois, and Angers” (Introd., p.
Ixv), in which the Editor believes the non-Baligant portions to have been
composed and, apparently, the final redaction of the whole work to have
been made. It is to be noted that the Editor objects (Introd., p. 1, Note)
a
0
d
SE
“
n
ce
Reviews 95
to what he deems Professor Bédier’s “ exaggerated respect for the readings”
of the Oxford Ms.
One wonders whether Professor Jenkins is not making too much of his
own interpretation (Introd., p. xxix) of the faulty line 3758. He changes
the Ms. forfist to sorfist, and proceeds to build arguments on this dubious
emendation. It seems to us unnecessary to change the forfist of the Ms.
To be sure, the me before it (Ms.: Rollant me forfist en or e en aveir) is met-
rically troublesome. If we felt sure of all possibilities of enclisis and pro-
clisis in the poem, we might propose to read: Forfist m’en or, Rodlanz, ed
en aveir, and interpret as Professor Bédier does: “‘ Roland m’avait fait
tort dans mon or, dans mes biens.” But we distrust our own change, as
proclisis of the unstressed object pronoun seems to us unlikely, and it is
really to raise that point that we have made what we deem an unpractical
suggestion; cf. v. 2029.
Since this edition appeared, Professor Bédier has again discussed the
questions of the date of the poem and its authorship. To his article in
the Revue de France, 1926, pp. 645 ff. (“Sur la date et sur l’auteur de la Ch.
de R.”’) nothing need be added here. It makes the due reserves as to Pro-
fessor Jenkins’s arguments in favor of “‘ the Norman Turoldus, who was,
almost certainly, Thorold of Envermeu ” (Introd., Ixv), as the poet of the
Chanson de Roland. Not yet can we say whether Turoldus was the poet,
or a scribe, or a minstrel; and v. 4002 still mystifies us. As Professor Bédier
intimates, arguments as to the place of the author that have been based on
the mention of Mont Saint-Michel have been carried too far. The high
regard which the poet shows everywhere for Francs and Franceis de France
would seem to mark him as being himself a native of the central French
region. Like Professor Jenkins, Professor Bédier accepts the idea that the
poem, as exhibited in the Oxford Ms., is posterior to the beginning of the
Crusades to the Holy Land; an early year in the 12th century seems indi-
cated as the date of the composition. That Bohemond’s wedding in
1106 prompted the writing of the epic is, as Professor Jenkins himself
admits (Introd., p. Ixvii), something for which “ concrete evidence, one
way or the other, is absolutely lacking.”” That French participation in the
operations against the Saracens in Spain during the 11th century influenced
the author of the Chanson de Roland, has been made more than likely by
the researches of recent years. That for descriptions of battles and other
details the poet drew from written accounts of events in the First Crusade
seems today at least probable.
The Editor is hardly warranted in speaking of Charlemagne, the
“ priest-king,”” who “ absolves and blesses.” He “ blesses,”’ of course, but
no author of the Roland, certainly no clerical author, could ever have con-
ceived of him as giving absolution. Formal absolution is not involved in
n
ir
s,
a
s
nt
ne
or
Id
Pn
ce 3
or
in
as
on
0,
d,
ly
ho ‘ee
on =
tin
he a
eal
art
nd
om
ew 4 4
the
ave
te)
96 Reviews
the asols (assols) of v. 340; it probably means “ released,” “ gave leave to
go,” i.e., it indicates the congé. At v. 524 and v. 539, it is said that Charle-
magne is more than two hundred years old. But we must observe that the
statement is made by a “ pagan.” Is the poet not calling attention to the
naiveté of the “‘ pagans ” instead of stating a fact accepted by the Chris-
tians? In the discussion of the figure of Roland we find no reference to
the legend of his incestuous origin. As to the antiquity of the Roland
poem in Spanish, which is mentioned in the Introd., p. xciv, some of us
have doubts. The appearance of Renaut de Montauban on the battiefield
of Roncesvaux provokes suspicion; and we are not sure, either, whether
we are dealing with a fragment of a lost epic or only with a ballad. On
p. xcix it is said that u “is pronounced as in Mod. Fr. dur, mur, perhaps
even more close.” What is more close? P. cii: “in ait (v. 3358), iu is
reduced to i;”’ but is not the form analogical to aidier, and dissyllabic
because aiut is dissyllabic (cf. Italian aita, aitare)? P. civ: “oti from wei
(oei) in loinz, linge + s.” How could wei ever become oi? The natural
result would be * lueinz, lwinz, and the latter, under the influence of adver-
bial lone could become loinz (v. 2429). P. cv: it is probable that O. Fr.
marchis (cf. marche) had ch=t% and not=k. In the rachatent of v. 1833
we may also have ch =t3, and * re-ad-captant may be the source. Certainly
an Arabic rahat is unlikely as the etymon. Pp. cv-cvi: here is discussed the
question of elision or non-elision of fem. e in groups like comencet a penser.
In his text the Editor has eliminated all cases of elision except that at v.
1834, and even for that he has an emendation to propose. The Editor has
been consistent in his policy and may be right; yet, the early 12th century
may have been a period of transition in which the ¢ was pronounced or sup-
pressed at will before a word beginning with a vowel; we know that it was
a period of transition for other phenomena represented in the poem, e.g.,
the pronunciation of the diphthong ai and possibly the pronunciation or
suppression of s before a nasal. P. evi: one asks himself whether the s of
resnes, reisnes in the Oxford Ms. may not be due to arrester (v. 13832-1382
and v. 1783). Of course, the s may be inorganic and unpronounced here
and in Rosne from Rhodanum (v. 1626); cf. blasme with silent s in v. 1082,
and with pronounced s in v. 1346 and v. 1718; and the s is pronounced
also in pasment, v. 1348. On p. cvi the remark is made that “ the space
of three generations may separate the language of the coypist from that of
the poet.”” This important fact might have been stated earlier along with
a full description of the Ms. P. eviii: That que is really a nominative
form of the relative, masc. and fem., in the Roland is not too certain; and
it may be unwise to retain the scribal qui for the oblique case form cut.
The latter was probably still accented on the u and not confused with qu
in the language of the poet. P. cix: In chameilz from camélos can the z=ts
|
3
.
Reviews 97
be due to palatalization of the 1 by the y element of the diphthong? Cf.
v. 505, fedeilz from fidélis. The history of other words of the type (pilus,
etc.) is pertinent. P. cx: If infinitives used substantively receive the flex-
ional s of the msc. nom. sg., why not aveirs in v. 639 and v. 643? P. exi:
Despite the evidence of the Oxford Ms., the nom. voc. pl. can hardly have
been other than seignor for the poet. The emperedor of v. 1444 is certainly
the acc.-dat. of possession; it might be well, since the verse needs correction
in any event, to change li to lo. P. cxiv: Bel sire from belle senior is more
than dubious; we cannot argue safely from spellings here, therefore the
cher sire of the Ms. helps us but little. P. exvii: Of course it is the medial
vowel that goes in the fut. and cond. of verbs like jurer. P. cxix: What is
the pronunciation of mangons? Cf. v. 1025, jugat and v. 1892, Digon.
P. exxiii (a): esteilles a misprint for esteiles? P. cxxv: When explaining the
rise of the partitive construction we must not forget the possibility of a be-
ginning in the negative use, i.e., with intensifying nouns that required a
prepositional construction: il ne pert point (mie, pas) del sanc, etc. P. cxxix:
Perhaps a beginning of the omission of the reflexive pronoun may have
occurred in cases such as afublez est and puis sont jostet; afublez+-s(e) and
puis+-s(e) would absorb the s(e); the loss is phonological here and cases
like est escridez are analogical. P. cxxx: en som. A similar case is that of
par mi, v. 700 and v. 738 (the Ms. has par mi as two words in both cases,
not parmi as the Editor has it in 738). P. cxli: The question of ¢o’st or c’est
brings up the matter of enclisis and proclisis; perhaps the Editor is right
in arguing for the enclisis in go’st. P. cxliii: Instead of reading, in v. 364,
por sire-l tenez, we might keep the seignor of the Oxford Ms. and omit the
pronoun, which may be understood from the first part of the line: E lui
aidiez e por seignor tenez.
Text. v. 6. Objecting to que as subject form, we would read: Fors Sar-
ragoce qui’st en une montaigne. v. 15, Note. Italian says: Che peccato!
v. 31. The Glossary gives impossible V. L. Austiire as the etymon for hostor.
Is it not V. L. acceptorem (for accipiter), with influence of avis, avem, au-
and the Germanic for hawk (cf. O. H. G. habuch)? v. 37, Note. September
29 is still St Michael’s Day, not October 16. v. 39. For the scribal sis
(mis, tis) should we not have in the text ses (mes, tes) as the poet’s form
of the msc. nom. sg.? The Oxford Ms. has also ses, etc. v. 115. We think
that ormier (Ms. or mer) represents aurum merum here and elsewhere.
Gold rather than sea-shell would be used for spurs (as in v. 1549) and for
the knob on a shield (as in v. 2538). v. 149. As fiz (Ms. filz) was one of
the words with which the case distinction first broke down, the Editor may
be justified in keeping it for the objective case; we wonder, however,
whether it had entirely displaced fil in the language of the poet. v. 194.
Can the neuter pronoun have had much demonstrative force in its enclitic
to |
le-
he =
he 4
is-
to
nd
us
Id
er
In
ps
is
bie
ral 4
er- 4 4
Fr.
333
the
ser. 4
has
ury
up-
vas
or
of
382
ere
ace
t of =
vith
tive 4
and
cul.
qui =
=
98 Reviews
employment? v. 201. For traditre, traditor the C. L. etymon given in the
Glossary (traditor, traditérem) cannot suffice. One is tempted to think of
a V. L. *tradictor, *tradictérem, under the influence of dicere, V. L.* dictum,
and possibly of traducere, traductum. v.212. Vide (Latin vita), for the Ms. vie,
answers well enough here, and Bédier’s translation gives the sense. The word
vide (visde, cf. veisdie) seems to have a sinister sense which is out of place here.
v. 215. Is not gernon scribal for guernon, a metathesized form of grenon?
v. 220. The note seems to read too much into the remark here. Ganelon
is not calling himself a scoundrel; the sense, in accord with Bédier’s render-
ing, seems to be: “‘ Woe’s you, if you believe a scoundrel, or me, or any one
else, unless the matter be to your advantage.” v. 222. The suggestion of
an emendation (see p. exii) to li mes Marsilion is attractive. But the Ms.
Marsilion (Marsiliun) can stand, if we accept an early breaking down of
the case system in proper names and certain frequently used vocatives
such as fiz, suer, etc. v. 279. Se lui laissiez for Sel lui laissiez. Did not
the customary suppression of the direct obj. prn. before the indirect obj.
prn. begin in a case like this? In sentence phonetics sel lui would become
se lui, and the direct obj. prn. sg. mac. and ntr. would disappear audibly
and in writing; the omission of la, les, under similar circumstances may be
due to analogy. v. 286. We prefer tot (or toz) fols. v. 287, Note. As the
Editor’s interpretation of v. 3758 is open to question, we are loath to accept
his views here. After all, the stepfather relation of Ganelon to Roland, a
never-dying folk-lore motive, is very important in the motivation here.
v. 288. A period or an exclamation mark seems more natural here than
a question mark. v. 300. Clearly this is a case of tmesis and ainz que
means ‘ before’; see Bédier’s translation. v. 306. We do not see any
necessary technical employment in Jo ne vos aim. v. 308. It seems un-
likely that veiz represents vidétis. Possibly the 2nd sg. veiz from vides was
used with interjectional force even in a vos form of address. With other
editors we might read vedeiz mei en present, and the strong form of the
obj. prn. after the imper. commends itself. v. 353. The punctuation and
the brittle dialogue introduced by the Editor do not appeal here. We
believe that vv. 350-356 are one speech, and that the faulty reading in the
Ms. of v. 354 is best corrected to n’ert. There is no obvious reason for
changing Ms. que of v. 356 to quer, not found elsewhere in the poem;
cf. the Editor‘s interpretation of the que of v. 4002. v. 359. We confess
to a preference for the emendation to bacheler here and in v. 2861; at all
events no solid evidence of chevaler is before us. v. 382. As que as subject
form is dubious and en is not needed, we might keep the Ms. qui (ki) and
read: qui oncore avrat honte. v. 395. For quiet read cuiet. We see no evi-
dence in the poem of a cuier (see Glossary); cuidet is needed here, and the
Editor, in spite of his Glossary entry, reads quidet, i.e., cuidet, in v. 1631.
|
]
'
Reviews 99
The ¢ should not be dotted in v. 1633. v. 401. Msc. li must yield to lui
in the strong fourth syllable of the verse, if the reference is to the Emperor.
v. 423. The Editor’s s’i is a useful interpretation of Ms. si, as it helps to
eliminate si, ‘if.’ v. 451. With Bédier and other editors, we would change
Ms. Tuit to Tant. v. 464. If we are right in arguing for enclisis as against
proclisis of the unstressed obj. prn., we might read here: A terre-l gietet.
vy. 485: escolez de lire; a highly desirable change from the Ms. reading.
v. 492. The infinitive is aguitier rather than aquiter, as its source, *ad-
quietare, develops an epenthetic palatal. v. 516. As in v. 115, we fail to
share the Editor’s aversion to gold; surely gold embroidery was not un-
known. v. 572 and v. 543: recredanz; the Glossary should give the sense
of “ weary.” v. 536. In view of barnet and its meaning, we had better
adhere to the Ms. here and read vuelt instead of vueill (voeill). v. 558.
Why change Ms. orient to oriant? Cf. v. 401, orient in an @ and é assonance;
the i and the e of orient are syllabically distinct. v. 567: Ne vos. A note
on the negative and affirmative expressions (naie, oie, etc.) might not be
amiss here. v. 591. In the light of v. 1959 we might well insert the nega-
tive and read: n’iert la martiries. v. 596. Why keep scribal chi and not
write qui? so in v. 629 onques is preferable to onches. v. 632, Note. The
suggestion of respondiet li does not strike us as good; li is a weak prn. and
can hardly stand in the tenth syllable. v. 673. In all cases of voiceless
intervocalic s we should prefer to see the sign doubled. v. 675: veisdie.
The etymon of this troublesome word and its variants can hardly be found
in Latin végétus, which is unsatisfactory phonetically and semasiologically.
The verb boisier, voisier (?), and the adj. voisos may be of the same family,
and they lead one to apprehend at least some connection with vitium;
ef. v. 977, enveiset, which is probably *invitiat. v. 678. Despite Tobler,
faz amener is no more a case of meaningless use of the auxiliary than is
faites guarder in v. 679. There is some tinge of causation present. v. 711.
The emendation is as good as any other thus far proposed. v. 797. Read
vielz, not vieilz. v. 801. As faillir is impossible in the assonance, we suggest,
on the basis of v. 2141, laier; other editors have adopted laissier. v. 805.
We prefer destreiz to deserz. v. 821. Why not read otssors for scribal oixors?
In the rest of this review we shall note but a few of the points that
might call for discussion. v. 830. For contenance cf. Erec, v. 5537; “‘ be-
havior ” seems to be the meaning. v. 893. O. Fr. had mater as well matir
(v. $206), and mat of this verse comes from the former. v. 899: barnet.
The Glossary does not give a suitable meaning for this. v. 961. A comma
is needed after presse. v. 979. Instead of esteient the Ms. has esteit and
a singular form is desirable. For the assonance one might read esteiet (cf.
Schwan-Behrens, Grammaire de l’ Ancien Frangais, 1923, No. 341, Remark);
but this product of V. L.*-éat does not appear elsewhere. vv. 975 ff. The
he
of
mM,
rd =
re,
on
er-
ne
Is. fae
of
res
10t
bj.
me iP
oly
he
pt
re.
an
jue
ny
ner 4
the
We
the
for
ess
all
nd
|
sl.
100 Reviews
appearance of nasal @i-e in an oral ei-e assonance marks this verse as sus-
pect; note also the ceo of v. 984. v. 897, Note. The Editor’s first interpre-
tation is the valid one. v. 991. The sense “ about ” is more than doubtful
for itels; it means “ fully.” v. 996. Is not sarragozeis scribal for sarragoceis?
Cf. the c of Sarragoce used regularly in the poem; the z here may be a faulty
writing due to v. 994, Sarrazineis. v. 1021. The Ms. bruur, changed by
Miiller and other editors to brunor as here, appears to be a hapax. May it
be from a V. L. *brutorem based on brutus (whence brudor, “racket, din’”’?),
Of course, one must not forget that vei stands here. v. 1091. In the poet’s
mouth vaignet (Ms. venget) is unlikely. Gaston Paris and others changed
to m’ataignet; cf. Gautier’s qu’a huntage remaigne. v. 1096. With other
editors read eschiveront. v. 1099. Vedez is imperative: “ just consider the
case a bit.” v. 1183. By Turpin assoldre is used in its full ecclesiastical
sense; cf. ante, v. 340, for a different use. v. 1152. The meaning “ old
favorite” for Veillantif does not appeal. We might think of a V. L. * Vigi-
lantivum, “vigilant one.” In his Morgante, the Italian poet Pulci has
Vegliantino, a diminutive of Vegliante. v. 1163. Gaston Paris’s emendation
is alluring; it is the Latin humili et dulci mente; cf. Spanish humilde y
dulcemente. v. 1167, Note. Why eskec instead of eschec? v. 1216. The iden-
tification in the Glossary of encrisme with a V. L. * intremidus is unneces-
sary. The word is probably based on Latin chrisma; cf. the profane use
of sacré. There may be contamination with crimen. v. 1217. Despite the
Vermischte Beitrége, there is no need of taking entre dows as a compound
preposition here. vv.1340-42. The punctuation is not commendable; it
is better to put (as in other editions) a period after damage, a comma after
altre, and an exclamation mark after place. The note is not convincing;
Bédier, Gréber and Lerch seem to find only gesir in the Ms., in v. 1342,
and the change to eissit is not helpful. v. 1876. After all, the likely sense
is: “‘ I accept you as my brother.”’ Other editions have no comma after jo
and put a period after frere (fredre). The note reads too much into the
passage. Stengel, following Venice IV, changed to te cognois mon frere.
v. 1430. The construction dont del mur, etc., is unparalleled in the poem.
While we should like to find here an early example of the partitive, it may be
that those editors are right who change to li murs. How can terremote be the
subject of cravent? v. 1433. In view of v. 1642, as it stands in the Oxford
Ms., is not espaént the form? v. 1473. Put a comma after Deu. v. 1474.
The Ms. has ki est; read qui’st. v. 1484. The Glossary’s metathesized
erécitu for haeréticu seems unnecessary. The partly learned development
is: ereticu >erietie >erieite >erite. v. 1502-03. Note. For dona read donat
(dunat). A proleptic use, in v. 1502, of li denoting Galafres seems strained.
Miiller, Gautier, and Clédat invert the order of the verses; Stengel and
Bédier, like Jenkins, keep the Ms. order. v. 1515. Here the Editor has
pes
—
4
Reviews 101
changed the Seignors barons of the Ms. to the correct form. Why not do
so in all the other cases? v. 1557, Note. The Editor has missed the true
sense. Cf. Bédier’s translation: “‘Ceuxda désormais ne vaudront plus
guére en bataille.” v. 1588. Bédier and Lerch are perhaps justified in
reading le dos rather than el dos. The e of el is added in a later hand;
there is a barely visible e after 1. Following v. 1649, we may read lo dos
here. v. 1604. A change from the Ms.: Dient Franceis: “‘ Barun, tant mare
fus!’” is desirable, since Baron, as voc. sg. is unlikely; but the caesura be-
tween noun and adjective, as Jenkins has it, is questionable. Venice VII
and the Paris Ms. have Vassals, which would permit us to read: Dient
Franceis: “‘ Vassals, tant mare fus!”” v. 1616. For volet read volet. v. 1634.
Jenkins’s emendation is as good as any made; cf. Stengel’s alteration, ac-
cording to Venice IV: qui del curre n’alentet. v. 1698. The part of the note
dealing with faire and lo is needless. v. 1701. Several editions have re-
placed Ms. nus after honte by en; this may be a good change. Or, in spite
of Jenkins’s hesitancy, we may read: que hontem (honte me) seit retraite.
yv. 1723. The Editor’s change of text and his note seem beside the mark.
The Ms. reading is entirely clear: Et il (or cil) respont: “‘ Cumpainz (i.e.
compaign) vos lo feistes. Of course we do not share Jenkins’s idea regarding
faire and lo in the Roland. v. 1729. Jenkins does not indicate that he has
changed the Ms. reading: Ceste bataille otisom faite u prise. Bédier has an
interesting note: “ faite u prise n’offre pas de sens. Si l’on remarque que
le vers suivant commence par U pris u mort, on peut conjecturer que le
scribe écrivait ici sous la dictée.” v. 1733. Jenkins’s own attractive emen-
dation desiqu’al he does not seem to note in his Glossary. We approve but
would write deci qu’al or dessi qu’al. v. 1750. Why not keep the obj. prn.
nos of the Ms. and write the syncopated future enfodront? v. 1777. The
Editor has given no valid reason for changing the clear reading of the Ms.:
Sis combatirent al bon vassal Rodlant. v. 1790, Note. Bédier, Gréber and
Lerch do not seem to find the end of this line illegible. It is bothersome to
have baron in the nom. sg. v. 1838. In the Glossary the Editor gives a
V. L. cormmunus instead of C. L. communis as the basis of the adjective
and would seem to take the adverb from *communa mente instead of the
usual communali mente. We may apprehend a V. L. *communus under the
influence of unus, but is it necessary? v. 1921. As the line stands, it has
the forbidden lyrical caesura. With Miiller, Gautier, etc., we may read:
Puis si escrident, etc. v. 1944. The esporons ad or of this verse shows the
real meaning of esporons d’or mier in v. 1549. v. 2022. The etymon for
doloser in the Glossary is hardly good. The adjective dolos is formed on
the stem of doleir from dolére, and the verb is from the French adjective;
cf. jalouser. v. 2063. Why change the clear reading of the Ms.? v. 2106.
Why change the Ms. vait to vat? Cannot vait stand in an a assonance?
=
ed
er
he
al
ba
n-
he ae
nd
12,
se
jo
he
m,
be
rd
14.
ont
nat
ed,
nd
1a8 3
4
102 Reviews
v. 2158. Here we are surely dealing with desmaillét. v. 2283. The very
easy change of Ms. tireres to tirer is better. v. 2404. For compaign the
Glossary registers compaing. v. 2449. Avoiding the proclisis of se, we might
read (instead of the usual correction adopted by Jenkins): A terres (terre se)
colchet; so again in v. 2484. The Ms. had Culchet sei a tere, which is metri-
cally bad. v. 2465. With his emendation the Editor makes needless diffi-
culties. The simple change of el to elle and of dedevant to devant, as made
by a number of editors, meets the issue. v. 2495. For the poet’s eschalquaite
the present text keeps the scribal escalguaite; the Glossary uses the good
form. v. 2506. In pont we may perceive the influence of pons, pontem ; the
punnus of the Glossary is unconvincing. Possibly pugnus, pomum, and
pontem have all had effect. v. 2631. For a fort the suggestion of a relation
to A. S. é ford is ingenious, but hardly plausible. On the testimony of v.
1197 and v. 1582 (corre ad esforz) we might read: Ad esforz siglent. v. 2653.
Note. As the gietent of v. 2652 indicates, mis means “ put” and not “trim-
med.” v. 2721. Jenkins’s change to baillide does not appeal. With other
editors read either: Trestote Espaigne at Charles en baillie, or Charles avrat
tote Espaigne en baillie; cf. v. 94, etc. v. 2753. As li is properly the weak
msc. dat. sg. prn., the strong form, lui, had better be used under the ictus
of the fourth syllable. v. 2789. If the semantics permit, we propose
dissipare, instead of de-aestuare, as the etymon of desver. v. 2815. Is
adun justifiable as a noun? Cf. the correction by other editors, on the basis
of Venice IV: “‘ Totes mes oz conduis.”” v. 2832. As Bédier’s note states,
the Ms. is bad at this passage, and the readings are problematical. v. 2834.
Note. A misprint; et ute should be e tute. v. 2849. In view of vv. 2496 ff.,
Stengel’s change to se drece(t) seems attractive; descendre is hardly likely
for ‘to get out of bed’ on a battlefield. v. 2861. Note. A misprint; for
309 read 359. v. 2868. Why put em here? The Ms. has en. Read om.
v. 2876. This nevolt (Ms. nevult) is only scribal for nevot. Why keep it here
and in v. 2894, if the change is made in v. 3182, where the Ms. has nevold?
v. 2936. A comma after ai might make the construction clearer. v. 2972.
No comma is needed after charettes. v. 3179. Why the question mark?
A period is needed. v. 3181. Note. We prefer Bédier’s interpretation:
** Maintes annales disent de lui de grandes louanges.”’ The abstract honor
may be used in the pl. without taking the sense of ‘feudal possessions,’
etc. Is the reference to v. 3032, note, correct? v. 3197. Should not the
Glossary note that enfant was practically a title of nobility, like bacheler?
Cf. the Old Spanish use of infante, infangon. vv. 3210-12. Jenkins has
not cleared up this passage, and his note is beside the mark. The difficulty
is created by A itel ore. If we omit the comma after Florit, as Bédier and
Lerch do, there is an overflow of the construction, an enjambement, which
seems unlikely in the poem. Perhaps this overflow can be tolerated, if we
é
8
7
A
m
E
q
be
q fo
P.
the
jos
i nor
Reviews 103
regard v. $211 as parenthetical, and conncct A itel ore with recoillit. In
such a case, a semi-colon will be needed after ore. But the break thus
created at the caesura seems unnatural also. v. 3262. Like the charre of
y. 33, etc., Geste may be pl. in this verse; but the evidence afforded by the
occurrences of the word in the poem is against the presumption. v. 3302.
The sense “‘ encourages” for esclairet is not compelling; it is even less
attractive than that of “dominates ” (Gautier) or of “‘ sounds more clearly ”
(Bédier), as given by other editors. v. 3338. Is leis supposed to represent
lex, the nom.? Stengel, Gautier, and Clédat change to lei from legem.
vy. 3340. The sense of this line is not clear. The Editor’s comma after mei
makes an unusual overflow at the caesura. Most editors put the comma
after vuelt (voelt). v. 3361. Read qui’st for qu’est; cf. qui’n (ki’n) in v. 3364.
v. 3872. The Editor gives us a dubious hapax in treschevant; it has the
merit, however, of being much closer to the actual reading of the Ms., than
the trestornant of the other editors. v. 3390. Read qui’n for qu’en. v. 3445.
Note. There seems no possibility of the translation: “ urges him (dares
him?) to strike back.” The meaning is: “‘ And the pagan presses upon him
closely with striking (with blows).” v. 3446. For lo baillastes we suggest:
“you gave it ” (i.e., the cols of 3438). v. 3456. The Ms. has ki en and we
dislike k’en. Perhaps we have the adjective destreit here: Morz est li gloz
qui destreit vos teneit, or, with an &xd xowod construction: Morz est li gloz
vos en destreit teneit (or: en destreit vos teneit.). v. 3512. Note. A misprint:
Auerum should be Avrum. v. 3578. Seinz is not simply sine, but sine plus
adverbial s, whence sens, and this, under the influence of ainz, becomes
seinz. v. 3624. The verse remains obscure. Ms. icels has been changed to
icel. v. 3663. Why not enter coigniedes in the Glossary as ‘axe’? vv. 3669-
70. Misprints: put a comma after contrediet and a period after ocidre.
v. 3710. Note. What has the “ happy pair ” to do with per here? v. 3732.
As before, when dealing with honor, the Editor has gone too far afield; it
means simply “ honor.” v. 3959. As traist is probably dissyllabic, the cor-
rection of the other editions seems desirable: Qui tradist home, etc. The
Editor lists it wrongly under traire. In v. 3974 we may omit Hom and
read: Qui tradist altre, etc.
Glossary. Suggestions of possible changes in the Glossary have already
been made. In general we should like to see the Editor giving the Classical
Latin beside the Vulgar Latin etyma, and starring the forms not actually
found. There are some omissions of etymologies that might be given.
p. 285. Add aditant; cf. itant. p. 287. ajoster needs a V. L. *ad-justare;
the Romance languages seem to show no trace of a palatal; cf. p. 336,
joste and joster. p. 288, under aloser is the laus intended to be the Latin
nominative sg.? That could hardly enter into the combination mentioned.
Cf. losange from a Germanic source, and also los, v. 1054, ete. p. 291,
ne
ht
le
od
he
nd
on
Vv
53.
m- a
rat
ak
tus
ose
Is
sis
34.
ff.,
ely
for |
ere
old?
172.
rk?
ion:
ns,
the
ler?
has
ulty
and
hich
f we
104 Reviews
artimalie. It is likely that arithmetica had something to do with this word.
p. 300, Chernuble. Instead of Muneire entered here, the text has Moneigre
at v. 975. p. 303, colchier. A V.L. *culticare is very unlikely; it is cer-
tainly not so good as collocare, whatever difficulties may be involved in
that etymon. p. 305, contor. The influence of the ending of emperedor is
not to be overlooked. Under corogos it might be said that coroz is an ab-
stract from the verb corocier, corecier. p. 306. crembre. It is not unlikely
that a contamination of tremere and credere will explain this verb; cf. the
future crendrez. p. 311. Under Denisie. read borc instead of bure. p. 319,
engraignier, and cf. note to v. 1088. The connection with grandis can
hardly be disputed. An ingramiare would give engrangier. Under ensement
it might be said that the first part of the word has some relation with ainsi.
p. 320. No etymon is given for environ; see the Dictionnaire Général.
p. 321. For eschevit cf. O. H. G. skafjan; English shave may be in point.
p. 322. eslegier. The Germanic ledig is of interest. p. 323. estoerdre. In
V. L. the verb was *estorcere. For estoveir, stupére is certainly no
better than *estopére. p. 331. Under guagier give etymon for guage. p. 332.
Under guerreier, the verb, indicate the suffix -idiare, and for the noun the
suffix -arium. p. 334, s.v. hoese. The etymon looks more like hofe than
hose. p. 337. laz is not from laqueum but from V. L. *laceum. p. 347,
s.v. neielét. Is not the etymon nigellatu rather than nigillatu? p. 348,
s.v. niént. Nec-ente is not the only etymon that has been proposed.
p. 358, s.v. puis. V. L. posteis is not particularly useful as an etymon.
p. 360. For en quitedet of v. 907 the sense “in quitiance, free from
foreign domination,” is likely. p. 361. Recreidre is as much a term of
militant chivalry as of religion and means “to retract an accusation,
to disown a cause,” when used by a knight defeated in battle. Refreidier.
The etymon given is V. L.; C. L. frigidus became V. L. *frigidus,
probably under the influence of rigidus. p. 366. There is no etymo-
logical explanation of se, sed, the conjunction. p. 370. As the text has
sosduiant, the word should be entered here after Sorz. p. 378. Wigre is
probably the same word as the guivre of v. 2543, and represents Latin
vipéra. The sense development would be (1) ‘ serpent,’ and (2) ‘ serpent-
like missile, dart, etc.’ A Germanic wigar may be in point also.
J.D. M. Forp,
Harvard University.
i
€
a
0
fq
Reviews 105
Lure SCHIAPARELLI, Avviamento allo Studio delle Abbreviature Latine nel Mediaevo. Firenze:
Olschki, 1926.
Luic1 SCHIAPARELLI, one of the most versatile and thorough of living
palaeographers, has performed a most useful service in presenting, within
less than one hundred pages, a \dyos mporperrixds to the study of Latin
abbreviations. Though much has yet to be learned about this intricate
subject, the time is ripe for just the general sort of survey that Schiaparelli
here makes. With a modesty equalled only by his caution and a caution
equalled only by his acquaintance with every part of the field, he has
traced the whole history of Latin abbreviations from earliest times into the
fifteenth century. Further investigation will fill in the gaps, but the main
stages of the development have been fixed, it would appear, definitively.
While the whole book is full of interest, the reader will find especially
illuminating the chapters on the ancient abbreviations in vogue before the
mediaeval scribes began their work. According to the author, who has
much evidence at his command, an elaborate system of abbreviations fur-
nished in antiquity, deriving largely from tachygraphical signs and com-
prising both suspensions and contractions. These symbols were widely
used, though not in the more sumptuous books, the editions de luxe. With
the advent of Christian literature, the sacred names were represented, in
both Greek and Latin texts by signs that were meant to honor divinity
rather than to save time and space. Schiaparelli accepts this much of
Traube’s epoch-making investigations, which made a living and continuous
history of what had once been an incoherent miscellany of barren details.
But the theory that the nomina sacra formed the seed from which the
mediaeval systems grew must now, after Lindsay’s researches and the
present work, be considerably modified. The story is one of the revival of
an ancient usage rather than of a fruitful invention, though invention in
details was constantly made. The Irish were apparently the first to re-
adopt the old symbols — unless, indeed, they had never ceased to use
them. In the Carolingian Renaissance at the end of the eighth century,
the tendency was to restrict the use of abbreviations to a minimum, what-
ever the amount and variety of the symbols at the disposal of the scribes.
They learned from the Irish and they drew directly from ancient sources.
Lindsay has done much to enlighten us on this point, and the reader may
also consult my study, “A Nest of Ancient Notae,” shortly to appear in
SPECULUM.
In one detail of terminology, Schiaparelli prefers not to follow Lindsay.
He uses the ancient and established term notae iuris instead of notae
artiquae, which Lindsay had conveniently coined to include the symbols
found in works other than those of the law. I am inclined to side with
d. =
re
in
b- =
ly
he
19,
an
St.
al.
nt.
on
no
32.
the
48,
on.
‘om
on,
ver.
lus,
mo-
has
e is
atin
ent-
106 Reviews
Lindsay in this matter, especially in view of the considerations presented
in my study mentioned above. Further discoveries, particularly from
papyri, may enlarge our information at any moment. It seems more natural
to suppose that a general system was adopted for special use in the law-
books rather than that a special system devised for them was developed
from them for general use. The situation is apparently the same as in the
case of nomina sacra. On all the essential points, so far as I can see, Schia-
parelli’s views coincide with Lindsay’s. The ground is thus laid for further
investigation in a fascinating problem not without its significance, as I
shall endeavor to show, in the history of early mediaeval culture in Ireland.
E. K. Rano.
<
ANNOUNCEMENT OF BOOKS RECEIVED
Under this heading Specutvm will list the titles of all books and mono-
graphs on mediaeval subjects as soon as they are received from author
or publisher. In many cases the titles here listed will be reviewed in a
future issue.
E. C. Armstrong, The Authorship of the Vengement Alixandre and of the Venjance Alizandre
(Elliott Monographs, No. 19), Princeton: University Press, 1926. Review in prep-
aration.
L. Behrendt, The Ethical Teaching of Hugo of Trimberg, diss., Washington: The Catholic
University of America, 1926. Review in preparation.
J. P. Christopher, S. Aureli Augustini Hipponiensis Episcopi de Cathechizandis Rudibus liber
unus. Translated with an Introduction and Commentary (Catholic University of
America, Patristic Studies, Vol. VIII), diss. Catholic University of America, Washing-
ton, D. C., 1926.
M. D. Clubb, ed., Christ and Satan: An Old English Poem (Yale Studies in English, No.
LXX), New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925.
Boris I. Iarkho. Iunyi Roland (Hruodlandus, Comes Limitis Brittannici), Gosud. Akademiia
Khudozhestvennykh Nauk, Leningrad, 1926. Pp. 188; Uebersicht (in German), pp.
125-31.
D. Maclean, The Law of the Lord’s Day in the Celtic Church, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1926.
Review in preparation.
A. Marigo, ed., Henrici Septimellensis Elegia siue de Miseria (Scriptores Latini Medii Aeui
Italici), Vol. I, Padua: A. Draghi, 1926. Review in preparation.
H, C. Maxwell-Lyte, Historical Notes on the Use of the Great Seal of England, London: H. M.
Stationery Office, 1926.
K. Strecker, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Carmina Cantabrigiensia, Berlin: Weidmann,
1926.
Die Gedichte Walters von Chatillon, I. Berlin: Weidmann, 1925. Review in preparation.
W. W. Williams, and B. V. R. Mills, edd., Select Treatises of S. Bernard of Clairvaux: De Dili-
gendo Deo, De Gradibus Humilitatis et Superbiae (Cambridge Patristic Texts), Cambridge:
University Press, 1926.
M. de Wulf, E. C. Messinger, tr., History of Medieval Philosophy, Vol. II, New York: Long-
mans, Green, 1926. Review in preparation.
ont
Pa:
d
le
eT
I
d
=
he
.
2
ay
NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS
I
GENERAL SUGGESTIONS
1. All communications intended for publication should be pre-
sented with as much consideration for style as the nature of the sub-
ject will permit.
2. Articles in foreign languages will usually be accepted, but it is
hoped that the authors of such articles will, if expedient, permit an
approved English translation to be substituted.
II
TYPOGRAPHICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL RULES
In the interest of uniformity, clearness, and economy, the edi-
torial board has adopted the following typographical and biblio-
graphical conventions. Since these will be applied to all MSS pub-
lished, contributors are requested to cotperate by following these
rules when preparing their MSS. Special cases will receive special
consideration, but it is hoped that contributors will be sparing in
their departures from the regular editorial practice.
1. All MSS must be typewritten, and double-spaced, on only one
side of standard-size (8}”X11") paper. Ample margins should be
left on all sides. MSS exceeding four or five pages should not be
folded or rolled.
2. Except for such recognized Anglicisms as shew for show and
-our for -or, the Concise Oxford Dictionary will be taken as the ortho-
graphic authority.
3. Italic will be used for words and phrases not in the language
in which the article is written, including quotations not exceeding
five or six typewritten lines, which appear in the body of the text
(see § 6 below); also for the titles of books and poems, ancient or
modern, of periodical publications, and for the title of manuscripts.
Such words, phrases, passages, or titles, unless italic script itself be
used, should be underscored.
4. Titles of articles in periodical publications will be in roman
and quoted. See §§ 14 and 15 below.
5. The following words, phrases, and abbreviations should be
italicized:
ad loc., cap., circa (ca.), et al., ibid., idem, infra, loc. cit., op. cit.,
passim, saec., scilicet (scil. or sc.), sub voce (s. v.), versus (vs.),
vide (v.), viz.,
4
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but not:
col., cf., etc., e.g., ff. (following), fol. (folio, folios), i.e., and p.
6. In the body of the text, quotations in any language of over
five or six typewritten lines will be printed without quotation marks
in small roman as separate paragraphs (see § 3 above). In footnotes,
also printed in small roman, quotations will be treated in the same
manner. In typewritten MSS, small roman may be indicated either
by single-spacing or by a vertical line at the side of the quoted
passage.
7. Wherever special type is necessary, a marginal note of instruc-
tion should be added. Bold-face should be indicated by a wavy line
under the word or words.
8. It will be of great convenience to the editors if footnotes are
placed immediately below the line which carries the reference num-
ber, and are set off from the text by a line drawn above and below
the note.
9. Reference numbers used for footnotes will be printed con-
tinuously on the page, but not continuously throughout an article.
10. In the citation of references the amount of bibliographical
detail will be left to the discretion of the contributor, but — taking
into consideration the desired omissions — the order of the items
should be presented in the form and order given below. As a rule,
item 5 should not be included in citing books over twenty years old.
Contributors are urged, however, to give full bibliographical data
when referring to out-of-the-way or very rare books, since such in-
formation is often of the greatest help to libraries and to individuals
who may wish to consult these titles.
The order of bibliographical items should be as follows: (1) au-
thor’s name, preceded by his initials and followed by a comma; (2)
title (italicized if of a book or periodical, in roman and quoted if of
and article); (3) where necessary, the edition, followed by a comma;
(4) place of publication, followed by a colon; (5) name of publisher;
(6) date of publication; (7) reference to volume (large roman
numerals without preceding ‘Vol.’ or ‘V.’) and page (or column).
Items 3 to 6 should be placed in parentheses. For example:
H. O. Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind (4th ed., New York: Macmillan, 1925), II, 221.
C. Plummer, “Glossary of DuCange. — Addenda et Corrigenda,” Archiuum Latinitatis
M edii Aeui, I (1925), 225.
11. Where the reference includes the number of the volume, as
in the illustrations given in § 10, the abbreviation ‘p.’ or ‘col.’
will be omitted; otherwise the page (or column) number should
be preceded ‘by ‘p.’ or ‘col.’ Folios of MSS should be designated
i |
‘
se
PP
Ve
ce
tic
pre
by ‘fol.’ and described ‘r’ and ‘v’ (not ‘a’ and ‘b’). Both ‘recto’
(‘r’) and ‘verso’ (‘v’) should be specified. For example:
C.H. Beeson, A Primer of Medieval Latin (Chicago: Scott,Foresman and Co., 1925), p. 45.
W.-H. Maigne d’Arnis, Lexicon Manuale ad Scriptores Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis (Paris:
Garnier, 1890), col. 1678.
MS. Cotton Vitel. A. XV, fol. 172v.
12. The names of ancient authors appearing in the body of the
text should not be abbreviated, though in footnotes abbreviations
may be used: for Greek, according to Liddell and Scott’s Greek-
English Lexicon (rev. ed., Oxford, 1925), pp. xiii-xxxvi; for Latin,
according to Harper’s Latin Dictionary (ed. Lewis and Short), pp.
vii-xi. For example:
Oros., iii, 12, 6.
13. In citing from the works of mediaeval and ancient authors,
use small roman numerals for ‘books,’ Arabic numerals for the
smaller divisions (chapter, section, etc.). Commas, not periods,
should separate these items. For example:
Bede, Historia Ecel., ii, 2.
14. In citing from periodical publications, both volume and year
should be given, the year (in parentheses) following the volume
number. For example:
R. R. Welschen, “Le Concept de Personne selon Saint Thomas,” Revue Thomiste, XXII
(1914), 129 ff.
15. The proceedings of societies and academies are often vexing
and perplexing titles to trace, and great economy of effort might be
effected were the bibliographical directions standardized. Therefore
it is kindly requested that the titles of the issuing body be given
from the entry in the Union List of Serials in the Libraries of the
United States and Canada, ed. W. Gregory (New York City: H. W.
Wilson Co., provisional ed., 1924 ff.); these entries are those used by
the Library of Congress and many other leading American libraries.
For example:
C. Wendel, ‘‘ Ueberlieferung und Entstehung der Theokrit-Scholien,” K. Gesells. d. Wis-
sensch. zu Géttingen, Abhandlungen, phil.-hist. K1., N. F., XVII (1920), Nr.@. (Cf. Union List,
pp. 822b, 823b.)
A. Hilka u. W. Séderhjelm, ‘Petri Alfonsi Disciplina Clericalis; I. Lat. Text,” Finska
Velenskaps-societeten, XXXVIII (Helsingfors, 1911), Nr. 4. (Cf. Union List, p. 748b.)
16. Upon first reference, titles should be given amply; in suc-
ceeding references any conventional or easily intelligible abbrevia-
tion may be employed.
17. Abbreviations such as loc. cit., op. cit. should not ordinarily
be used to refer farther back than the preceding page. Since the
problem, however, is merely to avoid ambiguity, no hard and fast
tule need be laid down.
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18. All references should be verified in the completed MS. before
it is submitted for publication.
19. Mediaeval nomenclature is far from uniform. Where a con-
ventional English form of a name exists, this should be used: thus,
Vincent of Beauvais, Geoffrey of Monmouth, not Vincentius Bello-
vacensis, Vincent de Beauvais, or Galfridus Monemutensis. If no
recognized English form exists, it will be preferable in most cases
to use the form of the name employed to-day in the language of the
writer concerned; thus, Chrétien de Troyes, not Chrestien de Troyes or
Christian of Troyes; Gautier de Chatillon, not Gualterus de Castellione
or Walter of Chatillon. In many cases the ‘standard’ form is, by
common consent and practice, Latin: thus, Andreas Capellanus, not
Andrew the Chaplain. There will of course be many doubtful cases,
e.g., Alanus de (ab) Insulis vs. Alain de I’Ile (de Lille).
The principle here stated is also applicable in most cases to the
titles of mediaeval works.
Except where a well-established Anglicized form exists, place-
names should follow the usage of the country in which the place
now lies.!
AvutTHoR’s CORRECTIONS
The funds of Specutum do not admit of an expenditure of over
fifteen per cent (15%) of the cost of composition for alterations in
articles once set up in galley proof. In order that contributors may
be spared the expense of exceeding this allowance, they are urged to
prepare their MSS as nearly as possible in conformity with the
above rules.
IV
OFFPRINTS
Fifty (50) offprints will be given to the author of each article.
Offprints in excess of the regular allowance may be had at cost and
should be ordered at the time of publication.
Inquiries may be addressed to the Managing Editor.
1 In preparing the above typographical and bibliographical rules, the editors have beea
under great obligation to A Manual for Writers by J. M. Manly and J. A. Powell (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press).
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